The Opposition MDC-T has said that Zimbabwe is now a military state and that the Zimbabwe Defence Forces were not going to leave the streets anytime soon as they wanted to ensure that their pet project succeeded. In an interview with the Daily News, MDC-T’s national organising secretary Abednico Bhebhe said:
The army process and the Zanu PF processes were both illegal. Now we have a coalition government of the army and unscrupulous Zanu PF individuals.
To prove that this whole thing is now a military state, what is the army doing on the roads where an awkward situation has arisen with police officers stopping vehicles and handing over to the army.
The pattern that is emerging is disturbing. What kind of an operation is that? What threat is government facing that warrants the army to go out there and search vehicles?
There has to be a national threat for the army to do that. Now my question to Mnangagwa is, what kind of threat is it that Zimbabweans don’t know?
Whatever insecurity there is, it should be known to the people.
…So when the military says it is targeting criminals around the president, we thought they would also target criminals around the wards and districts if they are genuine.
We thought the army would say, look, we are not Zanu PF, we are a people’s army so we are going to now stand aside as referees but we are not seeing that.
What we are seeing is a situation where the supposed referee is also taking penalties in the game, which explains why we now see even those that read the ‘coup’ statement being appointed to government.
The message is clear that we are in a military State and those who say we have gone back to normalcy are living in a fools’ paradise.
There is a partnership between Zanu PF and the army. The army did not come out to save us but to save Zanu PF.
The army won’t go away anytime soon because it’s their project and they want to see it through.
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