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Premium from the FT – Mnangagwa’s presidency falls short of low bar set by Mugabe
Few believe Mnangagwa and his ruling Zanu-PF will allow any possibility of losing the second post-Mugabe election which takes place on Wednesday.
By Joseph Cotterill and Kudzanai Musengi of the Financial Times
After Emmerson Mnangagwa was declared the winner of Zimbabwe's last general election, a year after leading the 2017 coup that removed dictator Robert Mugabe, he pledged to bring the country in from the cold, declared its economy "open for business" and applied to rejoin the Commonwealth.
The honeymoon ended when his soldiers fired live ammunition into election protesters. The bitter years since have been characterised by his renewed strongman leadership and what critics say is the worsening climate of fear and repression that now grips the southern African nation.
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