A political analyst has said the new COVID-19 lockdown regulations have nothing to do with the disease but were a “political statement”.
According to Rashweat Mukundu, the measures announced by President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Tuesday lacked substance on how the government intends to deal with the health crisis. He said:
The measures have little to do with COVID-19 because they lacked substance on how the government is going to increase access to healthcare facilities on those that are infected and the growing numbers of Zimbabweans who are coming from outside the country who are now in quarantine.
In fact, what we got is the reversal of our rights as citizens, which are the rights to association.
It is unacceptable that under COVID-19, certain limits to citizens’ right have to be implemented, but it appears that COVID-19 is now an excuse by Mnangagwa’s government to simply clamp down on its rivals and also manage the threats of protests that have been planned by opposition groups and political activists.
One gets a sense that the pronouncement by the President has more to do with the politics of the country than managing COVID-19.
Meanwhile, Government spokesperson Ndavaningi Mangwana said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the curfew imposed by Mnangagwa as some countries, South Africa, Kenya and India, for instance, have gone down the same path.