By Staff Reporter
The opposition People’s Unity Party (PUP) marked nine years since the November 2017 removal of Robert Mugabe with a statement accusing President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government of failing to deliver on the promises of a, “new dispensation,” citing economic hardship, unresolved Gukurahundi grievances and a recent constitutional amendment extending presidential terms.
Zimbabweans were promised the country was, “open for business” and that “jobs, investment and prosperity would follow” the removal of Mugabe, PUP president Herbert Chamuka said in the statement.
“Nine years later, the People’s Unity Party asks a very simple question: where is this new dispensation?” He asked in the statement.
On the economy, Chamuka highlighted that the formal economy has failed to generate sufficient opportunities pointing to rising prices, youth emigration and struggling businesses.
“The informal economy has become the survival mechanism for millions of people, not because government deliberately created a prosperous informal sector, but because the formal economy has failed to generate sufficient opportunities,” he said.
Turning to corruption, he said, “there cannot be one law for the ordinary citizen and another law for people with political connections.”
Anti-corruption agencies, he added, must have, “the independence and courage to follow evidence wherever it leads.”
Referring to the killing of civilians on August 1 2018, and the deadly crackdown on fuel-price protests in January 2019, Chamuka said, “criticism is not treason, opposition is not terrorism.”
He also accused authorities of continued intimidation and arbitrary arrests targeting opposition activists, journalists and civil society figures.
On Gukurahundi, Chamuka said victims, “deserve more than speeches,” and added that “the passage of time does not erase responsibility.”
He added that survivors and families of victims must receive meaningful and timely compensation and reparations.
“Communities must be supported in their healing.
Families seeking information about their loved ones must be assisted in establishing the truth,” he reiterated.
Chamuka also criticised the 2026 constitutional amendment extending presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years, calling it, “not a minor technical adjustment” but a change that, “changes the relationship between citizens and the presidency.”
“The Constitution is not President Mnangagwa’s personal property.
It is not ZANU-PF property
It belongs to the people of Zimbabwe,” he said.
With Mnangagwa now positioned to remain in office until 2030, Chamuka urged him to, “use it to open” the political space rather than close it further, and called for, “genuine and inclusive national political dialogue” rather than, “another carefully choreographed gathering.”
“We will not praise government simply because it is government,” Chamuka said. “Zimbabwe has waited long enough,” he said.
The government has not yet responded to the PUP’s statement.
