Current:Home > ScamsZimbabwe’s opposition boycotts president’s 1st State of the Nation speech since disputed election -ThriveEdge Finance
Zimbabwe’s opposition boycotts president’s 1st State of the Nation speech since disputed election
View
Date:2025-04-12 19:59:41
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s main opposition party on Tuesday boycotted President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s State of the Nation address following his disputed reelection in August, revealing the widening political cracks in the southern African nation amid allegations of a post-vote clampdown on government critics.
Citizens Coalition for Change spokesperson Promise Mkwananzi said the party’s lawmakers stayed away from the speech because it views Mnangagwa as “illegitimate.”
The CCC accuses Mnangagwa, 81, of fraudulently winning a second term and using violence and intimidation against critics, including by having some elected opposition officials arrested.
The ruling ZANU-PF party, which has been in power in Zimbabwe since the country’s independence from white minority rule in 1980, also retained a majority of Parliament seats in the late August voting. Western and African observers questioned the credibility of the polling, saying an atmosphere of intimidation existed before and during the presidential and parliamentary elections.
Mnangagwa’s address at the $200 million Chinese-built Parliament building in Mt. Hampden, about 18 kilometers (11 miles) west of the capital, Harare, officially opened the new legislative term.
He described the August elections as “credible, free, fair and peaceful” but did not refer to the opposition boycott during his speech, which he used to lay out a legislative agenda that included finalizing a bill that the president’s critics view as an attempt to restrict the work of outspoken non-governmental organizations.
Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe’s troubled economy was “on an upward trajectory” despite “the illegal sanctions imposed on us by our detractors.” He was referring to sanctions imposed by the United States about two decades ago over alleged human rights violations during the leadership of the late former President Robert Mugabe.
The long-ruling autocrat was removed in a 2017 coup and replaced by Mnangagwa, his one-time ally. Mugabe died in 2019.
Mnangagwa said rebounding agricultural production, an improved power supply, a booming mining sector, increased tourist arrivals and infrastructure projects such as roads and boreholes were all signs of growth in Zimbabwe, which experienced one of the world’s worst economic crises and dizzying levels of hyperinflation 15 years ago.
The few remaining formal businesses in the country of 15 million have repeatedly complained about being suffocated by an ongoing currency crisis.
More than two-thirds of the working age population in the once-prosperous country survives on informal activities such as street hawking, according to International Monetary Fund figures. Poor or nonexistent sanitation infrastructure and a scarcity of clean water has resulted in regular cholera outbreaks.
According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care, an outbreak that started in late August had killed 12 people by the end of September in southeastern Zimbabwe. Authorities in Harare said Tuesday that they had recorded five confirmed cases of cholera but no deaths in some of the capital’s poorest suburbs.
___
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
veryGood! (5586)
Related
- Scoot flight from Singapore to Wuhan turns back after 'technical issue' detected
- 'Lifesaver': How iPhone's satellite mode helped during Hurricane Helene
- What to know about red tide after Florida’s back-to-back hurricanes
- Uphill battles that put abortion rights on ballots are unlikely to end even if the measures pass
- Paula Abdul settles lawsuit with former 'So You Think You Can Dance' co
- Colorado gold mine where tour guide was killed and tourists trapped ordered closed by regulators
- Tennessee judges say doctors can’t be disciplined for providing emergency abortions
- Asian American evangelicals’ theology is conservative. But that doesn’t mean they vote that way
- IRS recovers $4.7 billion in back taxes and braces for cuts with Trump and GOP in power
- Prosecutors ask Massachusetts’ highest court to allow murder retrial for Karen Read
Ranking
- Trump suggestion that Egypt, Jordan absorb Palestinians from Gaza draws rejections, confusion
- Harris’ interview with Fox News is marked by testy exchanges over immigration and more
- One Direction's Liam Payne May Have Been Unconscious When He Fatally Fell From Balcony
- Alabama to execute man for killing 5 in what he says was a meth-fueled rampage
- The city of Chicago is ordered to pay nearly $80M for a police chase that killed a 10
- Oregon Elections Division shuts down phone lines after barrage of calls prompted by false claims
- Wanda and Jamal, joined by mistaken Thanksgiving text, share her cancer battle
- Bachelor Nation’s Carly Waddell Engaged to Todd Allen Trassler
Recommendation
Elon Musk's skyrocketing net worth: He's the first person with over $400 billion
Prosecutors say father of Georgia shooting suspect knew son was obsessed with school shooters
Colorado gold mine where tour guide was killed and tourists trapped ordered closed by regulators
‘Breaking Bad’ star appears in ad campaign against littering in New Mexico
Sonya Massey's father decries possible release of former deputy charged with her death
His country trained him to fight. Then he turned against it. More like him are doing the same
Parkland shooting judge criticizes shooter’s attorneys during talk to law students
Booming buyouts: Average cost of firing college football coach continues to rise