While any meaningful solution to the ongoing crisis in Zimbabwe will have to come from the country’s citizens themselves, it is in the interest of South Africa and the region to be more assertive in its diplomatic efforts to facilitate a resolution.
Human rights lawyer and opposition MDC Senator David Coltart told a recent GIBS Forum: “We desperately need the international community to facilitate a dialogue. Zimbabwe has a corrosive power in the region and the potential to reverse democratic gains. If we do not return to the values of the constitution, this cancer can spread to the region and undermine it, including South Africa.”
Professor Arthur Mutambara, former deputy prime minister of Zimbabwe said the root of Zimbabwe’s current crisis lay in the fact that the current government of Emmerson Mnangagwa was established by a coup d’état in 2017: “You cannot build a democracy on that basis.” Furthermore, “the economy is in free fall and there is no appetite for resolving the economic crisis. There is a deficit of confidence and trust,” he added.
