The year has begun. So has the politicking. It has just been a few weeks but all these agendas are already pointing to a busy year politically. If ever there was a time for clarity in Zimbabwe, it is now. The din of political noise is deafening, declarations from the 2030 Zanu PF presidential term extension faction, contestations from the opposition and civil society — well, and collusions, drown out sober analysis.
My submission will look beyond the mooted constitutional amendments aimed at extending the president’s term of office. While this is an important issue, readers of political strategy will tell you that this will be a war of attrition whose crescendo will only come late in 2026 or early 2027. Nothing more than cultivating the ground and buying loyalties and building alliances will be done by the faction this year.
The constitution will not be touched on until the third-termists are certain that they have the much-needed political capital to pull it off, and that will take a bit of time. The problem, however, is that this agenda will deflect attention away from the everyday issues faced by everyday Zimbabweans.
Aluta continua
Yet, as 2025 unfolds the signs are already clear that the struggles of Zimbabweans from yesteryear will continue unabated. The bread-and-butter issues, a predatory tax regime, a public service on its knees, a dying education system, the neglected plight of workers, a currency framework playing Russian roulette with the incomes of hardworking-underpaid citizens are some of the most important issues that we must not put to the back burner.
These are the real battles fought, and lost, by ordinary Zimbabweans every day. For them, the lamentations by Lucretius that, “life is one long struggle in the dark” is not some poetic philosophical quip but a harsh reality of life. For them, the struggle continues.
I will, therefore, attempt to cut through the political noise, sort through the clutter and get to what really matters in 2025.
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As we begin the year, a flurry of notices for company closures, retrenchments, and new taxation requirements remind us of the unresolved economic problems of the country. No matter how much the government mandarins try to spin it, the writing is on the wall that we are continuing in the downward economic spiral.
Zimbabweans know this too well. Inflation, always a sweet spot for spin doctors, has, over the past year, remained a monstrous reality, devouring incomes faster than they are earned. It is an indictment of economic mismanagement epitomised by a predatory taxation regime where Finance minister Mthuli Ncube taxes everything and anything that moves — or does not move. So long he can spell its name, he taxes it!
It reminds me of a cruel Kalanga saying, “yembisana ayitokwanga” (milk from a cow that belongs to a boy does not dry up). You see, growing up in the village we would herd cattle, and while out there would allocate each other lactating cows that we would milk in the forest either when we got hungry or for such delicacies as preparing a smoothie from sour plum or some other treat.
Young men used to milk the cows belonging to smaller boys frequently throughout the day and when the small boy protested they were told, “yembisana ayitokwanga!”. This was cruel to both the cow and the boy. And that is what Ncube is doing to Zimbabweans, milking them dry and coming for more!
While all this is happening, the minister insists on maintaining artificial or even command stability of the ZiG through tightening money supply.
This translates to unaffordable prices, while salaries remain stagnant and unemployment festers, the gap between policy pronouncements and lived reality grows wider. This is not just an economic issue; it is a betrayal of the social contract.
Public service on its knees
While the taxation regime is sucking the impoverished citizens dry, there is nothing to show for it on the side of public services. Hospitals have become places of despair, where patients are asked to bring their own gloves, drugs, and even water. Civil servants overburdened and underpaid. They are leaving en masse, and those who remain are demoralised.
This is not mere incompetence; it is systemic neglect. The state has abdicated its most basic duty: ensuring the welfare of its citizens. Instead, public funds are siphoned into vanity projects designed to line the pockets of a coterie of interconnected entrepreneurs who enjoy proximity to power while the people languish in service-starved communities.
The capacity and competency of our public institutions at the national and local level is weakened. Their ability to deliver public goods such as education, health, water, electricity, public transport, safety and security, decent work, etc. is seriously constrained.
This increases poverty, vulnerability, and precarity, especially for disadvantaged groups such as the poor, women, youth, people with disability, rural communities, and minorities.
Public institutions must deliver on the expectations of the social contract in which citizens have the legitimate expectation for the state to deliver their rights and provide public goods as duty bearers.
But then, the progressive left is caught in an infinite game of chasing its own tail.
Amid all this neo-liberal plunder through harsh taxes on one hand, without delivery of public goods on the other hand, the ground for leftist mobilisation as a progressive force has been fertile for decades.
Zimbabwe’s political landscape has a very rich history of leftist intellectual vigour from the nationalist movement up to the emergence of the democracy movement at the turn of the millennium. However, contemporary left-leaning politics have not gained momentum in the country.
Successive Zanu PF governments have presented their ideological credentials as leftist revolutionaries yet in practice their policies have been reactionary influenced more by political expediency than ideological grounding.
Weak institutions
As a consequence, they have aligned with and pursued liberal to centre-right economic principles accelerated by Finance, Economic Development and Investment Promotion minister Mthuli Ncube of late.
Of course, it has always fallen short when it comes to implementation because of the weak capacity of the state and the limited competence of its institutions to deliver within a centre-right framework.
The Zimbabwean context characterised by recurring economic crises, eroded incomes, huge inequalities, and a skewed economic model is also ill-suited for such ideological inclinations.
The progressive left in Zimbabwe, having occupied oppositional spaces, has grown to be anti-statist, suspicious of power, and interested more in disruptive and grandstanding political approaches, which has also opened its ranks to indiscipline.
This is understandable because many activists have been the victims of state repression and state-sponsored violence hence their view of the state as an evil construct is based on lived experiences. The tendency to view the state and power as evil means the left has failed to embrace the pragmatism that is needed to acquire power and to govern even when conditions are fertile for that.
Reactionary intrigue
As such, their pursuits have mostly been in the idealist framing influenced by political trends and romantic narratives detached from the everyday socio-economic issues of the masses.
Its emphasis is more on soundbites aimed at the manufacture and harvest of dissent and frustration than on developing and presenting realistic policy alternatives that speak to the material realities of citizens.
Indeed, this has exposed the traditional base of leftists — rural peasants and the working poor vulnerable to exploitation and capture by the ruling party through reactionary intrigue and populist authoritarianism for narrow short-term political interests.
Sober view
The political noise, characterised by the 2030 mantra and the consequent reactionary intrigue, threatens to overshadow the real struggles of everyday Zimbabweans.
While the machinations of power unfold, bread-and-butter issues continue to press down on the masses, rendering their lives precarious and laden with despair.
The struggle for clarity amidst the noise must focus on reclaiming the fundamentals: the rights and dignity of citizens, the restoration of public good, and the fight for an equitable economic system.
Zimbabweans must refuse to succumb to despair or distraction. The path forward demands unity, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to holding power accountable while building movements that prioritise social justice, public welfare, and the reinvigoration of the social contract.
As we cut through the noise of 2025, one truth emerges as aptly captured by Lucretius, the year will be one long struggle in the dark — figuratively and literally.
This is my sober view; I take no prisoners.
Dumani is an independent political analyst. He writes in his personal capacity.
