HOW HAS ED PERFORMED?

How has Emmerson Mnangagwa performed in 6 years?

Successes:

1. He has made Zimbabwe self-sufficient in food.

2. He is developing infrastructure such as dams, irrigation systems, airports, border posts, bridges and roads to grow the economy.

3. He has increased power generation using Chinese technology to overcome US sanctions.

4. His policies have ensured sufficient fuel availability, eliminating fuel queues.

5. He has revived key industries like CSC and ZISCO and is working on David White Head.

6. He commissioned Africa's largest steel plant in Manhize.

7. He has attracted foreign investment.

8. He has increased GDP by $10 billion since taking office.

9. He achieved Zimbabwe's first trade surpluses since 2000.

10. He has set record-breaking tobacco and wheat production.

11. He is a President who listens and demonstrates tolerance, allowing for free speech.

12. He has empowered artisanal miners, resulting in the emergence of black-owned, black-funded gold mining companies in Zimbabwe. This lessens the impact of his decision to remove indigenization, which I criticize him for below.

13. He has helped create a significant number of black millionaires.

14. Unlike Mugabe, he had a biography written about him.

15. He values and respects Zimbabwe's heritage, heroes and rituals, as evident through his recognition of the Mutapa Empire and the erection of the Nehanda Shrine.

Failures:

1. He reversed indigenization, which hinders black empowerment.

2. He is borrowing to compensate white farmers for land that they acquired through theft, without paying restitution to original owners. This perpetuates the idea that blacks are inferior to whites and undermines the global fight for restitution and reparations for the crimes of colonialism and slavery.

3. He has devoted excessive time to reengaging with racists who hate Africans and view us as subordinates.

4. He has not invested enough effort in effectively communicating his achievements, his long-term vision for the nation and building brand Zimbabwe to win the minds and hearts of all citizens.

5. He seeks to rejoin the Commonwealth, which places Zimbabwe under British influence once again. I believe this is a setback to black emancipation, although I understand that he may be motivated by the fact that whites in the UK will be a minority to Muslims by 2050.

6. Due to how he assumed power, he has trust issues and has appointed individuals based on personal and tribal relationships rather than merit and loyalty to Zimbabwe.

7. He has failed to curb inflation by stabilizing the value of the Zim dollar. This is largely because he allows politically connected people to continue to violate forex exchange controls for their personal gain.

8. He publicly opposes sanctions and rhetorically supports the fight against them, but he has not effectively contributed to this fight. Instead, under him, sanctions are being used to protect local monopolies, raising the question of why rely on sanctions to defend local companies instead of reintroducing indigenization?

9. Despite garnering support from South Africa, SADC, AU and the UN against sanctions, ED’s government has undermined this fight by trying to use sanctions to grow local businesses.

But by not fighting to remove sanctions, they put allies like the ANC on a backfoot, as their support of Zimbabwe’s fight against sanctions by accommodating Zimbabwean refugees, may lead to ANC losing power to an anti-African DA led #DemocraticApartheidCoalition that will partner with the US to forcefully remove ZANU PF.

10. He desecrated his own history and that of the nation by allowing a racially biased and duplicitous author like Eddy Cross to write his book, that should have been penned by a native historian who knows MaDzimbabwe culture.

In my evaluation, the President has performed reasonably on economic matters but falls short on soft power. Therefore, I rate him at 69%. For reference, I would give Chamisa a rating of 42% for his work in urban municipalities.