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Zimbabwe: Mugabe loads new cabinet with hardliners
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| Contributor | IndyGeorgia |
| Last Edited | IndyGeorgia Sep 11, 2013 02:32pm |
| Category | News |
| News Date | Sep 11, 2013 02:00pm |
| Description | Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe unveiled a new cabinet made up of hard-line supporters, some of whom have personally murdered his political opponents, in a move that worries those hoping for a political opening in the southern tier of Africa.
There had been intense speculation about Mr. Mugabe's cabinet choices since he won an historic seventh term in July. That victory ended five years of an uneasy but effective working coalition with former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai that notched small but significant reforms, and is given credit for improving the economy.
Many analysts believed with the election over, the 89-year old would appoint technocrats from his party. Yet few moderates and no opposition figures are in the new inner-circle.
Mugabe, 89, has chosen more militant politicians to run his key ministries, bringing little comfort to Zimbabweans or western critics; many of the new figures are accused of human rights abuses, the curtailing of media freedoms, and past dubious handling of the economy.
Mugabe's choice of former Defense Minster Emmerson Mnangagwa as justice minister suggests Mugabe favors a hard-liner to succeed him. Mr. Mnangagwa, one of two people tipped to succeed Mugabe, is nicknamed "The Crocodile," and is thought to be the chief architect of the Gurkurahundi massacres in Matabeleland in the late 1980s, where thousands of opposition supporters were killed. |
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