Zimbabwe has not been hit as hard by the coronavirus as many countries have; as of September 22, 2020, it had recorded just over 7,700 cases and 226 deaths from the virus.1 Yet, the government’s management of the crisis has been poor and deepened existing political tensions that were already brought to the fore by the November 2017 military coup.
The Zimbabwean government has failed to improve the country’s healthcare system. The military-political elite has largely arranged its own private medical care—to much popular anger. The government has not put forward a strong economic recovery plan as the economy has contracted sharply and poverty has intensified. Funds intended for managing the pandemic have often not reached their intended beneficiaries. Government officials and individuals connected with the first family and the presidency are implicated in the corrupt procurement of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other, related medical requirements. The health minister was fired for alleged corrupt practices.2 Retired army commander and current Zimbabwean Vice President Constantino Chiwenga was appointed to replace him and has promised to reform the health sector and stop foreign medical trips.3
Against this backdrop, many civil society organizations (CSOs) have developed new identities to focus on supporting basic needs during the pandemic. But the regime has also used the virus to clamp down hard and further restrict CSOs’ activities. The increase in civic activism has not been strong or widespread enough to counteract repression, so the regime has been able to consolidate its authoritarian rule. The virus has presented Zimbabwean civil society with an opportunity to build new social and community alliances and put the regime on the back foot; but overall, civic groups have not fully taken advantage of this chance.
New Civil Society Identities
The pandemic has presented an opportunity for Zimbabwean CSOs to show that they are organizing around community priorities and public goods. The country’s largely pro-democracy and civil liberties organizations have been able to work with new stakeholders and the many constituencies affected by a government clampdown disguised as coronavirus lockdown measures.
The Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights has come to the fore in demanding PPE for frontline healthcare workers, while the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights have represented citizens whose rights have been violated by the military and the police. In Harare, the Community Water Alliance and the Combined Harare Residents Association forged a partnership to distribute masks and sanitizers in the high-density suburbs where the working class resides. The Zimbabwe Elections Support Network is using its research capacity to monitor the government’s coronavirus response. The Media Institute for Southern Africa has defended the rights and freedoms of journalists who are being harassed while covering coronavirus-related issues.
Many CSOs have begun to forge new alliances that will increase their reach and enhance their work. For example, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has been excluded from engaging with government workers, many of whom are victimized for joining or associating with the union because of its historical role in trying to bring the government to account. However, the plight of healthcare professionals, who are demanding better pay and PPE, is a cause for which ZCTU can form new alliances with the civil service with little resistance.
Economic justice organizations, such as the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development, have established social accountability and tracking platforms that monitor government and private sector commitments and expenditure on fighting the coronavirus. Groups that have historically focused on health rights at the community level, such as the Community Health Working Group, are now more visible in engaging with policy and practices in response to the pandemic.
Women’s groups have become notably more active by connecting their rights agenda to the pandemic. Women have suffered targeted victimization by soldiers in the lockdown. Women’s groups and CSOs have an opportunity to improve and deepen their connections with women who are victims of brutality and violence at the hands of elements of the security services. The Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe produces a daily report that records women’s experiences during the pandemic and policy inconsistencies.
Other CSOs have explored ways to collaborate in response to the coronavirus. A good example is that of three women’s organizations—the Musasa Project, the Zimbabwe Women’s Lawyers Association, and the Adult Rape Clinic—that have collaborated to create a platform to assist people who may be under lockdown in abusive home environments. The organizations provide counseling and temporary shelter and have been agitating for antiretroviral treatment to be accessible for HIV-positive women in the lockdown.
Emerging voices such as that of investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono, who has spoken out to expose acts of corruption, have gained a platform during the pandemic. Some sections of the Christian church have also become quite prominent in voicing their disenchantment with the government’s corruption and authoritarian tendencies under the cover of regulations to contain the virus.4 Namatai Kwekwedza, a twenty-one-year-old female activist from the WeLead Trust, has dominated headlines and public discourse by defending Zimbabwe’s 2013 constitution, which is being amended before it has even been implemented.5 The changes will create an imperial-style presidency and a dominant executive with sweeping powers, including an unchecked ability to choose judges. Kwekwedza, together with activist Vongai Zimudzi, was arrested for voicing her concerns over the consultative process.
Artists and musicians have also become more prominent in their opposition to the regime’s actions. Tsitsi Dangarembga, an internationally acclaimed writer, has taken to holding one-woman protests and demanding the release of those arrested for exposing corruption. A musician popular among the young, Winky-D, has used social media to demand action against coronavirus-related corruption. Zimbabwean CSOs have moved online to adapt to the new realities and replaced public debates with webinar summits and online panel discussions.
Although these are all great examples of individuals and CSOs that have strategically positioned themselves in response to the pandemic, much of civil society has missed this opportunity by failing to repurpose itself or identify strategic roles it can play in its coronavirus responses. Traditional civil society work has not stopped, but the reality clearly puts the management of the pandemic ahead of other, competing priorities. Instead of gaining more legitimacy in communities, some organizations have decreased their impact as they have failed to adjust to new demands and the expectations of communities. Digital activism has also struggled to gain traction: the cost of internet data in Zimbabwe is beyond the reach of many, limiting the reach of civil society cyber initiatives.6 Further, online activities can lead to offline reprisals, including arrests and prosecution, as the government and the ruling party consider social media a battleground for critical narratives.
New Attacks on Civic Space
While new kinds of activism have intensified in the pandemic, the other side of the coin has been the regime’s repression of civil society. The government of Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa imposed something akin to a state of emergency under the guise of coronavirus lockdown measures. The deployment of soldiers to conduct policing duties in townships has helped the regime’s autocratic consolidation. As of July 19, 2020, a total of 105,000 citizens had been arrested for lockdown-related crimes, but only 101,375 Zimbabweans had been tested for the coronavirus.7 These statistics clearly show that the regime has deployed at least equal, if not more, resources to arrest and intimidate citizens than to fund the public healthcare system.
This situation means that civil society faces two enormous hurdles: first, the challenges related to organizing in the context of the pandemic and, second, the regime’s militaristic approach toward activist spaces and dissenting voices. The state’s heavy-handedness has resulted in a shrinking civic space. Activists and civil society actors who have confronted the regime’s actions during the pandemic have been harassed, arbitrarily arrested, and, in some instances, abducted and tortured; their attempts to protest have been ruthlessly quashed. Civil society has been seriously crippled by stringent surveillance measures and the targeted victimization of critical voices.
The regime has used civil society’s limited capacity to physically organize in communities to introduce constitutional amendments that will reverse the gains of the 2013 constitution. The regime carried out a token consultative process, which was weakened by citizens’ inability to gather due to restrictions. Civil society made tremendous efforts to organize despite this limiting environment. Yet, those efforts were met with intimidation and harassment of citizens who opposed the consultative process and the amendments themselves.
A case that highlights the regime’s deepening autocratic tendencies relates to unfolding corruption scandals. Zimbabwe’s governance system has proved incompetent to deal with the considerable corruption risks associated with the country’s crisis response, even though donor and multilateral organizations hold the government’s hand in managing the pandemic. As the central coordinating and implementing organ of the country’s coronavirus responses, the government has failed to make sure that resources reach their destinations.
The regime has deployed military-style responses to thwart critical voices. An anticorruption demonstration scheduled for July 31, 2020, was accompanied by an increase in human rights abuses as the government frantically attempted to silence citizens. Security forces besieged the homes of Obert Masaraure, the president of an association of rural teachers, and ZCTU President Peter Mutasa. Opposition leaders have faced arrest for organizing other anticorruption protests. Several people have been detained on trumped-up charges ranging from inciting public violence to undermining the authority of the president on social media.
In Zimbabwe, corruption, a healthcare crisis, and a general economic crisis are long-standing ills that have been heightened by the pandemic. While there is an opportunity for civil society to agitate and organize on these issues, the regime has used the same opportunity to tighten its grip and close civic space. On July 19, 2020, Mnangagwa announced a raft of measures as part of a new blanket lockdown. A mooted cybersecurity bill is set to further curtail citizens’ capacity to engage online.
Civil Society’s Increased Watchdog Role
The attack on civic space by the Zimbabwean regime appears to have failed in deterring civil society from mobilizing. Rather, the assault has fueled a more radical and robust response from civic actors. The pandemic has exposed the Zimbabwean government’s systemic flaws and floundering governance architecture, making it urgent for civil society to increase its role as a watchdog. Collaborative efforts among new civic voices, traditional civil society actors (in particular, the Zimbabwe National Students Union and ZCTU), the church, and progressive elements of the media led to a widespread campaign against corruption and rights abuses.
The anticorruption protests that began online in May 2020 after Chin’ono exposed a huge scandal involving corrupt procurement in the government’s coronavirus relief aid morphed into a protest movement. Independent voices, political activists, and civic actors called for a street protest on July 31 against corruption and human rights abuses during the lockdown. Citizens used online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp to mobilize for the protest. A week before the demonstration, the government launched a witch hunt against the activists, followed by a violent clampdown on the protest itself. The leaders of the planned protest—including activist Jacob Ngarivhume, who leads the political party Transform Zimbabwe, and Chin’ono—were arrested for inciting public violence.
On July 31, the government deployed soldiers onto the streets to prevent citizens from exercising their constitutional right to protest. The Zimbabwe Peace Project later recorded that forty-eight people had been unlawfully detained, 168 harassed, fifteen abducted or tortured, and fifty-eight assaulted for organizing or participating in the protest.8 The regime also targeted political leaders and activists in a desperate attempt to create a counternarrative of a power wrangle between the leading opposition Movement for Democratic Change Alliance party and the government. Despite the repression, the protest was amplified online and civic actors continued to demonstrate.
Traditional civil society groups used their networks, resources, and experience to support the efforts of the campaign and help victimized activists and citizens. The Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights and other groups provided medical care and referral support, while organizations such as the Zimbabwe Peace Project documented rights violations. When serious human rights abuses were exposed, the campaign escalated online. A hashtag inspired by the worldwide Black Lives Matter movement started to trend online: #ZimbabweanLivesMatter brought global attention to the violent clampdown on civic and political actors. Artists, political leaders, journalists, and international civil society endorsed the online campaign, which had close to 1 million tweets in its first three days.9 Civic actors increased their push for the government to account for human rights abuses that included abduction, torture, arbitrary arrests, and raids of homes.
Civil society’s increased watchdog role brought about the effective collaboration of social movements, new civic actors, labor groups, students, and CSOs. Civil society will need to deepen this collaboration beyond the pandemic as a way of building common ground and pooling intellectual and material resources. This type of cooperation is also a useful way of organizing that will increase CSOs’ resilience in the face of a clampdown by an autocratic regime that is constantly attacking civic space.
At the same time, the July 31 protest enabled Zimbabwean civil society to join the global conversation about the effects of the coronavirus on civic space. The case of Zimbabwe—in particular, the way in which the regime has closed civic space under the guise of coronavirus emergency laws—contributes to the need for a global conversation about effective strategies for funding civil society during and after the pandemic.
Conclusion
Some Zimbabwean CSOs have repurposed and expanded their mandates to include public health issues. These organizations have also been a pillar for those who have suffered at the hands of a regime that continues to engage in unconstitutional acts. More CSOs need to adjust and grow under pressure by adopting new identities, becoming cyber champions, providing alternative thought leadership, fostering new partnerships, and playing coordinating roles. This is a path that will award civil society with greater legitimacy and recognition.
Civil society’s increased oversight role, which came in response to the government’s abuse of coronavirus resources, is a positive opportunity for CSOs to find new ways to safeguard dissent and build resilience against state repression. The July 31 protest brought about new collaboration among emerging voices, social movements, progressive media, and traditional CSOs. This collaboration may be an option for exploring new ways of organizing in the face of regime repression, which is being concealed behind emergency laws to manage the pandemic.
The increased watchdog role of civic groups has also contributed to greater legitimacy for civil society in communities. Coupled with this is the ability of CSOs to diversify and become hybrid organizations that not only deal with their traditional niche but also provide civic leadership and support in managing the pandemic. While access to information is a limitation in Zimbabwe, civil society’s pushback against repression has demonstrated that virtual spaces are now central and effective in civic organizing in the country. Without taking away from the harms caused by militarization and repression in this period, there are new opportunities for a creative reorganization of civic space to ensure continued resilience and vibrancy beyond the pandemic.
Notes
1 Ministry of HealthZW (@MoHCCZim), “COVID-19 Update: As at 22 September 2020, Zimbabwe had 7 711 confirmed cases, including 5 979 recoveries and 226 deaths,” Twitter post, September 22, 2020, https://twitter.com/MoHCCZim/status/1308471554196504576.
2 “Zimbabwe Health Minister Obediah Moyo Sacked Amid Graft Scandal,” Al Jazeera, July 8, 2020, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/zimbabwe-health-minister-obediah-moyo-sacked-graft-scandal-200708070434612.html.
3 Anna Chibamu, “Zimbabwe: No More Overseas Treatment for Senior Govt Officials – Chiwenga,” allAfrica, September 8, 2020, https://allafrica.com/stories/202009080709.html.
4 “Position Paper: Proposed Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 2,” Zimbabwe Council of Churches, June 15, 2020, http://kubatana.net/2020/06/15/position-paper-proposed-constitutional-amendment-bill-no-2/.
5 “Bill Summary: Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 2) Bill [H.B.23, 2019],” Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust, February 12, 2020, http://kubatana.net/2020/02/12/bill-summary-constitution-of-zimbabwe-amendment-no-2-bill-h-b-23-2019/.
6 “ZOL Announces Price Increase – Here’s What You’ll Pay Now (May 2020),” TechZim, May 24, 2020, https://www.techzim.co.zw/2020/05/zol-announces-price-increase-heres-what-youll-pay-now-may-2020/.
7 “Coronavirus: Zimbabwe Arrests 100,000 for ‘Violations’ of Measures,” BBC, July 19, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53462259.
8 “ZPP Monthly Monitoring Report (July 2020),” Zimbabwe Peace Project, August 3, 2020, https://reliefweb.int/report/zimbabwe/zpp-monthly-monitoring-report-july-2020.
9 Ray Ndlovu, “Zimbabwean Lives Matter Movement Grows With Support From Big Names,” Business Live, August 4, 2020, https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/world/africa/2020-08-04-zimbabwean-lives-matter-movement-grows-with-support-from-big-names/.