ZIMBABWEAN police have come under criticism for alleged selective application of the law and partisanship for their gentle handling of protests in support of Robert Mugabe, in contrast to the brutal reaction to recent protests against the veteran leader.
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Mawarire last week was briefly arrested and charged with subverting a constitutionally elected government before being freed by a court in the capital, Harare.
Other veterans support Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a hardliner seen as the most likely successor to Mugabe.
“We note, with concern, shock and dismay, the systematic entrenchment of dictatorial tendencies, personified by the president and his cohorts, which have slowly devoured the values of the liberation struggle”, the group said in a statement.
A supporter of the ruling party Zanu PF gestures outside the party headquarters to show support for President Robert Mugabe following a wave of anti-governement protests over the last two weeks in Harare, Zimbabwe July 20, 2016.
Mugabe has castigated Mawarire who is behind the #ThisFlag social media campaign that denounces the government’s management of the economy.
Most Zimbabweans that are working outside the country, Mawarire said, were exhausted of being humiliated and want to return to their motherland.
He said the current leadership in both Zanu PF and opposition political parties should be content with taking up advisory roles and realise that it was time for a new generation to build the Zimbabwe they dreamt of.
“They tell us that the green is for the vegetation and for the crops”.
The 92-year-old president, however, accused Mawarire of being “foreign sponsored” and not being a “man of religion”. ‘If they don’t like to live with us, let them go to those who are sponsoring them, to the countries of those who are sponsoring them, fine’. “Love one another”, the president said during an address to thousands of mourners at the funeral of Charles Utete, the country’s first black cabinet secretary.
“I am a very anxious man after hearing what our head of state said about me this week”, he said.
Mugabe is quoted as saying, “First Corinthians, what does it say?” “Mugabe has a dilemma with this one”.
“Not all of them are true preachers of the bible”. It described him as “a leader who has presided over untold suffering of the general population for his own personal aggrandizement and that of his cronies” and said they wouldn’t support him in 2018 elections.
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“I don’t know whether they are serving God. we spell God double G.O.D, they spell God in reverse”, Mugabe argued. His government, facing severe currency shortages, has restricted cash withdrawals, banned imports of many goods and repeatedly delayed payment of civil servants’ salaries, leading to strikes.
