COVID raises the stakes for Zimbabwe’s Civil Society Movement

As in nations worldwide, the pandemic offers new opportunities for repression.

Countries worldwide that suffer or risk violent conflicts face a new hazard amid the COVID-19 pandemic: governments’ use of the disease as a pretext to curtail democratic freedoms and punish opposition. As COVID has spread across Africa, Zimbabwe is emerging as one of the countries most vulnerable to the disease—and most illustrative of its threat to peace and democratization efforts on the continent. Two and a half years after a military coup installed President Emmerson Mnangagwa, his government has used the health crisis to arrest members of the opposition and journalists, and divert humanitarian aid to ruling party supporters.

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FILE — President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe in his office in Harare in 2019. Government dysfunction, an economic meltdown, drought and a calamitous flood have plunged Zimbabwe into a hunger crisis, and hopes that Mnangagwa could revive the country’s economy have almost completely faded. (Zinyange Auntony/The New York Times)