Exchange to Change June 2018 E2C-may18-web | Page 15

FA C T S
this, dos Santos maintained his grip on
power, resisting calls for fair elections
and suppressing dissent.
In 2016, dos Santos relented to
immense pressure from his party to
step aside and agreed to resign from
the presidency in September 2017. He
was succeeded by another prominent
member of the MPLA, João Lourenço.
However, Lourenço has vowed to crack
down on corruption, and appears to
be making good on his promises. He
has publicly reminded dos Santos of
his pledge to vacate the MPLA party
leadership (which dos Santos promised
to do this year, but he has not yet
named a successor) 2 . Lourenço has also
acted to curtail an emergent dynasty
led by two of dos Santos’ children, José
Filomeno dos Santos and Isabel dos
Santos. José Filomeno was not only
dismissed from his post as the director
of Angola’s sovereign wealth fund. He
has also been charged with the massive
fraud that occurred under his tenure 3 .
And Isabel (who was once celebrated
as the African continent’s first female
billionaire—allegedly a testament to
her business acumen as opposed to
personal connections) was dismissed
from her post as director of Angola’s
state-owned oil firm, Sonangol, on 15
November 2017 4 .
Robert Mugabe, President of
Zimbabwe 1980-2017
Coincidentally, the same day that
Isabel dos Santos was fired from
Sonangol as part of Lourenço’s anti-
corruption measures, another African
leader’s reign also came to an end:
Robert Mugabe was placed under
house arrest by the military, and a few
days later, on November 21, he resigned
as president of Zimbabwe after 37 years
in power.
Like dos Santos, Mugabe fought in his
country’s anti-colonial struggle. The
fight against the Rhodesian state’s
white-minority rule ended in 1979, and
Mugabe, considered a war hero and
a senior Zimbabwe African National
Union (ZANU) party leader, became
the prime minister in 1980. (Later,
ZANU merged with another party, and
15
2017, the military held Mugabe under
house arrest, ultimately leading to
his resignation and the installation
of Mnangagwa as interim president.
Elections will take place in July of this
year.
What next?
changed to its current name, Zimbabwe
African National Union – Patriotic
Front, ZANU-PF).
With the elimination of a common
enemy (Ian Smith’s Rhodesian regime),
ethnic divisions flared up in Zimbabwe
between the two main tribal groups 5 ,
the Shona and Ndebele. This escalated
to violent conflict and the gukurahundi
between 1983-1987, in which Ndebele
civilians were massacred by the
national army. Land reform remained a
major issue, and in 2000 war veterans
began invading white-owned farms to
reclaim the land from which natives had
been dispossessed under colonialism.
Initially reluctant, Mugabe ultimately
supported the land invasions and
legalized the occupations 6 . However,
as a result of economic crisis (partly
stemming from structural adjustment
programs implemented in the late
1990s) the situation in Zimbabwe was
worsening, particularly following the
2009 hyperinflation that rendered
Zimbabwean currency useless.
Even as popular support for Mugabe
waned, opposition parties failed to
unseat ZANU-PF. Ultimately it was
the military, led by Mugabe’s former
allies, that unseated him. In recent
years, Mugabe’s much younger wife
Grace wielded considerable influence
in the government and was preparing
to be Mugabe’s successor in upcoming
elections. In early November 2017,
Mugabe (allegedly at Grace’s urging)
began firing senior party officials,
including vice president and long-
time ally Emmerson Mnangagwa,
precipitating the military action.
For eight tense days in November
Does the unseating of two of the
longest-serving rulers in sub-Saharan
Africa indicate a more democratic
future? Some commentators have
expressed doubts about actual regime
change, arguing that the deposition
of particular individuals is merely a
way for ruling parties to appear to
take action against corruption, while
maintaining power 7 . Indeed, Mugabe
is still considered a respected hero
of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, which
perhaps explains the generous ‘golden
parachute’ he has been granted upon
leaving office. ZANU-PF still controls
Zimbabwe, and Mnangagwa —known
in Zimbabwe as ‘the crocodile’, a
reference to both his famed cunning
and his role in the massacre of
Ndebele civilians 8 —is hoping to win
the upcoming elections. There is also
speculation that General Constantino
Chiwenga, wh