Zimbabwe Authoritarianism Analysis

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Introduction The idea of governance is not new. The exact meaning of governance that is being spoken about hinges on the level of governance, the goals to be accomplished and the approach being followed. According to the World Bank’s 1989 report, "Good governance is epitomized by predictable, open and enlightened policy-making, a bureaucracy imbued with a professional ethos acting in furtherance of the public good, the rule of law, transparent processes, and a strong civil society participating in public affairs. Poor governance is characterized by arbitrary policy making, unaccountable bureaucracies, unenforced or unjust legal systems, the abuse of executive power, a civil society unengaged in public life, and widespread corruption. According…show more content…
There is a never-ending progression of various shades of authoritarianism, first under the white-settler colonialism from the years 1890 to 1979 and then again under the postcolonial rule of blacks since 1980. Therefore, the three major streams that have fed into Zimbabwe's political culture are African traditionalism, settler colonialism, and liberation war politics. These three streams have worked separately and in combination to anchor authoritarianism and against the growth and development of democratic attitudes and behaviours. The result of this is that these three streams have reinforced post-independence autocratic practices and produced the hardened strain of authoritarianism that is visible today in Zimbabwe. Thus, it can be concluded that authoritarianism has come on since a long time and that its resilience was openly displayed in the run-up to the presidential runoff election in 2008. (Masunungure, 2011:…show more content…
This coalition stands ready to use violence in order to execute the Machiavellian vision of Robert Mugabe so that he can perpetuate his control over the state (Masunungure, 2011:47). At the beginning of 2008 authoritarianism became militarised with the blatant invasion of security into the politics of the country. This process peaked with the 2008 presidential election. The authoritarianism of the electoral dimension in Zimbabwe stems from the fact that the regime does indeed hold elections but these elections are manipulated for the party’s own ends. (Masunungure, 47). The year 2000 saw the beginning of a complete mess in Zimbabwe. The economy was a complete mess because of rampant corruption, uncontrolled borrowing which brought about the result of mountainous debt, spiralling inflation and sky-high interest rates. Additionally, there were huge budget deficits and an increasingly high cost of living and the rapid spread of poverty. At the end of the year the economic state of Zimbabwe was disastrous (Harold-Barry,
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