I was prompted to write this piece after reading Wicknell Chivayo’s recent response to concerns raised by a Manicaland legislator regarding the 30MW Gairezi Hydro Power Project. The response was striking not for what it contained, but for how it was delivered: clean, logical, and clinical.
It was devoid of the evasion one might expect from a figure so frequently in the public crosshairs. Instead, it was structured, technically grounded, and unmistakably clear. More …
ZanuPF, a revolutionary political party built through sacrifice and sustained by discipline, cannot afford to turn internal disagreements into public combat. That was the sober warning issued by Cde Lovemore Matuke, the party’s Secretary for Security in the Politburo, as he addressed rising concern over how differences are being handled within the movement.
Cde Matuke urged members to “desist from having a go at each other in public” and to “learn to resolve their differences amicably,” cautioning that unchecked public quarrels carry a far more serious consequence. When internal disputes are performed in the open, he warned, they risk disembowelling the party from within – stripping it of cohesion, authority, and moral centre. More …
Six hundred megawatts added to the national grid. A record-breaking 46.7 tonnes of gold delivered to the state coffers. 560 000 tonnes of wheat harvested, securing national self-sufficiency. Three hundred million dollars poured into modernising the Beitbridge border corridor. A month-on-month inflation rate tamed to just 0.2 per cent. Over two billion dollars in annual diaspora capital flowing directly into the economy.
These are not campaign slogans. They are the cold, hard integers of a Zimbabwe that has stopped waiting for permission to succeed. For two decades, the global narrative on Zimbabwe has been a single, catastrophic script: crisis, collapse, and the inevitable end. But if you put down the newspaper and look at the concrete being poured, a different, inconvenient truth emerges. While critics predict the funeral, the Second Republic under President Emmerson Mnangagwa has been quietly engaged in the unglamorous, gritty business of statecraft. We are witnessing a calculated retreat from the theatre of politics into the engine room of economics – a shift that prioritises control over applause. More …
The expulsion of Blessed Geza and Gifford Gomwe is not a forgotten footnote in the Party’s long march; it is a warning flare fired into the night sky. It signals, unmistakably, that indiscipline – especially when amplified through the reckless megaphone of social media – carries consequences in ZANUPF. Their removal was not an attempt to silence thought or debate. It was an act of institutional self-defence, meant to preserve order, hierarchy, and the coherence of the Party’s central brand.
That brand is His Excellency, President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.
Every durable political party functions like a solar system: it survives because all bodies orbit a single, stable centre. In ZANUPF, that centre is President Mnangagwa. He is not merely the Head of State; he is the Party’s face, anchor, and reference point. Strategy, messaging, and mobilisation must revolve around him. Self-appointed unaligned spokespeople, freelance ideologues, and online gladiators are not exhibiting initiative; they are drifting into insubordination. More …
There is a reason why the narrative in Western capitals has gone quiet. For twenty-five years, the “experts” in London and Washington have been waiting for us to starve. They looked at the Fast Track Land Reform Programme and saw only the destruction of colonial property rights. They obsessed over the tractor count of 1998 while ignoring the human revolution of 2000. But while they were busy drafting sanctions and writing obituaries for our economy, Zimbabwe was quietly building something they never anticipated: the world’s first decentralised, climate-resilient agrarian model. The “breadbasket” didn’t burn. It evolved.
The myth of the Rhodesian “golden age” is finally dead, buried by data they can no longer suppress. When the blistering El Niño droughts of the last decade hit Southern Africa, the corporate farming giants of our neighbours – heavily leveraged and reliant on energy-intensive overhead irrigation – buckled under the dual weight of debt and power deficits. But in Zimbabwe? The newly resettled A1 and A2 farmers held the line. More …
As we navigate the early months of 2026, the narrative surrounding Zimbabwe is undergoing a profound transformation. For years, the conversation was dominated by the language of recovery; today, it is defined by the acceleration of intent. Having successfully concluded the first phase of the National Development Strategy (NDS1) and now aggressively implementing NDS2, Harare is no longer looking inward. It is looking outward, positioning itself as the logistical, industrial, and ecological pivot – the true nexus – of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
To understand this shift, one must look past the headlines to the structural realities. Zimbabwe’s geography is its most powerful latent asset. Situated at the intersection of the North-South and East-West corridors, the nation acts as the region’s natural circulatory system. What has changed is the intentionality behind this position.
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History tends to remember leaders less for the battles they wage than for how they choose to end them. In Zimbabwe’s case, the final chapter between President Robert Gabriel Mugabe and President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa reveals more about leadership than the turbulence that preceded it.
For decades, the country’s political life was shaped by a partnership forged in the liberation struggle and sustained through the long years of state-building. When that relationship ruptured in November 2017, the break appeared absolute. The hostility was raw, amplified by palace intrigues and the corrosive role of third parties – particularly the G40 faction – who thrived by isolating an ageing leader from his most stabilising alliances. At the time, it looked like a familiar tragedy of succession: mentor and protégé permanently sundered. More …
Zimbabwe’s political theatre has a habit of blurring intent and projection. In the case of Cde Kudakwashe Tagwirei, that distinction is now clear. His commitment to serving in the Central Committee is undisputed. Beyond that, he has neither declared nor suggested any ambition for higher office. Yet a growing chorus of unauthorised voices continues to draft him into contests he has shown no interest in running.
This is not mobilisation; it is indiscipline. One of the enduring ironies of political communication is that the “brand owner” often becomes the first casualty of his own supporters. By projecting their ambitions onto Tagwirei, these voices distort his disciplined posture and weaken the very brand they claim to defend. More …
Zimbabwe’s current development moment cannot be understood through isolated statistics or sectoral announcements. It must be read as a single, coherent political economy narrative in which macroeconomic stabilisation is deliberately being converted into structural transformation across multiple fronts of national life. From the standpoint of fiscal and monetary economics, the recording of US$16,2 billion in foreign currency receipts in 2025 – the highest figure in Zimbabwe’s history and nearly three times the 2017 level – is not merely an accounting milestone. It is a credibility signal. From the perspective of development politics, the more consequential question is how the State is now choosing to deploy that credibility in 2026. More …
The reaction to Professor Gift Mugano is neither an economic disagreement nor a serious political debate; it is a textbook case of cognitive dissonance masquerading as outrage. For years, opposition figures, including Fadzayi Mahere and LynnStacia, elevated Professor Mugano to near-canonical status, not because scholarship was sacred, but because his views confirmed their priors. His authority was celebrated, circulated, and weaponised. More …
Hi, I’m Dereck Goto. I use this space to think out loud about ideas, systems, power, and the quieter details that shape how we live and communicate. This blog isn’t about chasing trends or offering comfortable conclusions. It’s about asking better questions, challenging lazy narratives, and exploring issues with honesty and intellectual independence. Some posts are analytical, some reflective, and some deliberately provocative - but all are written with intention.