20/09/2018 Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Regional Office is concerned about the police brutality in response to the striking workers in eSwatini demanding higher wages and reforms to the way the state pension fund was managed. Media reports indicate that several workers were wounded in the clashes on Tuesday, as police used batons, stun grenades to disperse the crowd. We condemn this barbaric behaviour and we call upon the authorities in eSwatini to uphold the rule of law, res

Zimbabwe has stalled democratic development following the disputed July 30, 2018 elections with fears that the country may have regressed 10 years after the Harare shootings and violence on 01 August 2018. In the wake of such valid and founded fears, the country must immediately undertake reforms in key sectors and institutions to safeguard and promote democracy and human security which include the judiciary, security sector and the electoral commission. In this article, I ar

We now therefore call on SADC member States and Governments to address the following issues raised by the different clusters who convened at the 2018 SADC People Summit at the Windhoek Show grounds: Ensure that all countries demilitarize the civilian space and governments and return to civilian rule and uphold the rule of law SADC should put time bound reform programme for Lesotho to commence reforms in earnest failing to which the regional body should withdraw their support.

This edition comes after Zimbabwe’s watershed elections whose final outcome was decided by the Constitutional Court after a huge dispute over its credibility. Since the last edition, we had reported that the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Regional Office had deployed its own observer mission in Zimbabwe a few days before the elections to get a first-hand experience of the electoral processes. The observer team was drawn solidarity partners across the SADC region and they had an

Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa’s inauguration as Zimbabwe’s second president and commander-in-chief consummated power for the main beneficiary of the November 2017 coup that forced Robert Mugabe’s long delayed retirement. Zimbabwean scholar and activist Brian Raftopoulos’ remarks during a public meeting at the University of Cape Town five years ago come to mind. As all were wondering what would happen in the weeks before the much-marred 2013 Zimbabwean election, Raftopoulos argu

Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court recently rendered a judgment upholding the election of Emmerson Mnangagwa as President of Zimbabwe following a legal challenge by Nelson Chamisa presidential candidate for the MDC Alliance. Chamisa had argued that the presidential election should be nullified on account of irregularities in the conduct of the election. Mnangagwa and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) opposed the petition on both technical and substantive grounds. On arrivi