People-driven change and democratic renewal is happening in Zimbabwe

Nyabane Clinic in Bulilima which was built by the local community

AS WE look on at the disastrous Constitution of Zimbabwe (Amendment) Act (No. 3), 2026 project, the theatric Zanu Conference, the zviganada phenomenon and the reported King Munhumutapa prospect, it is necessary to unpack how Zimbabwe’s democratic governance crisis actually manifests and affects ordinary citizens and how Zimbabweans themselves are slowly and quietly reclaiming their power back in ways that are not so apparent.

The governance crises manifest in several profound ways.

The first is the struggle to get a job, put food on the table, pay rent, send kids to school, makes ends meet.

The second is in subjecting the entire struggling and impoverished country to a daily unending menu of opulence and decadence and nauseating splurge by a small political and economic elite that has captured the state and its treasury.

The third is the youth unemployment, drugs and alcohol crisis affecting young people in both rural and urban areas.

The fourth is the gold mining crisis (driven by predatory elites) across the entire country: the unavoidable lure of the dangerous makorokodza/gweja phenomenon, its destruction of the rural landscape including grazing and farming, its environmental degradation, its exploitative and risky nature for young people and the exploitation of young adolescent women it promotes. In essence, it’s destruction of rural life as we know it.

The fifth is the economically exploitative and environmentally destructive Chinese mining model, the corrupt alliances it has with political leaders. The excavation of mountains, historical and ancestral sites, the ecological damage to rivers and river basins, the permanent disruption of waterways and water security, the gaping holes it leaves across the entire country dangerous for humans and livestock.

The sixth is a State that is completely absent when it comes to providing services (health, water, electricity, education, education) and omnipresent when it comes to suppressing fundamental freedoms, and corruptly extracting rents from all national and local economic activity and plundering the treasury.

Naming or identifying the problem is one thing, but “what is to be done” as Lenin asked in 1901?

It is time the approach to the country’s democratic deficits changed and shifted from an assumption of a silver political bullet that expects the solution to people’s problems to come from the same politicians who have caused them.

History has shown that it is Zanu PF politicians that have been the root and cause of all these problems. The assumption that the same Zanu PF politicians and their oligarch allies that have impoverished Zimbabweans and continue to corruptly empty the treasury and fill their private bank accounts instead of fixing roads, hospitals, electricity, water, education etc can and will fix them is misplaced. So is the long held assumption that one simply has to replace Zanu PF with the opposition for Zimbabwe’s problems to be solved. This false logic has shaped the nature of political contestation in Zimbabwe for far too long. It has been a gross error for people to expect politicians to solve the same problems they have caused. There has to be a new approach:

In the democratic governance crisis, there is no doubt that a shift in political leadership remains key. Zimbabwe needs leaders who care about the people, leaders who are there to serve the people and who are not there to serve themselves. The current political system that priorities pillaging of public resources and primitive accumulation by a handful has to be appended and overthrown. This is non-negotiable. This predatory political system is incapable to ensuring that the state is positively present in people’s lives, delivers health, education, electricity, water and other services, because it sees the state as being solely for its own interests, benefit and enrichment.

The destructive nature of mining is intrinsically linked to the governance model that sees communities (rural and urban) solely as sites of exploration and extraction. So the solution to this problem also lies in disruption of the existing corrupt, predatory and exploitative zviganada governance model.

But it does not end there. For far too long Zimbabweans have essentialised politics as the one and only avenue and vehicle for economic transformation. Whilst the nature and type of politics undoubtedly determines the type of economics and development in any country, society and community, politics is not the only thing that shapes economic development. People do. With or without politicians. Sometimes people must counter or work around politicians.

Zimbabwe and indeed other countries are littered with examples of people taking charge of their own local economic development. People deciding to sidestep and ignore politicians, people and communities coming together to collectively agree on the most pressing priorities and agreeing on plans to collectively address them. From village to district to town, communities have come together to fix roads, build dams, clinics, schools, drill boreholes, establish community and neighborhood watch and safety units and drive anti-drug and anti-alcohol campaigns that centre alternatives and recreation for young people. Zimbabweans across the world are investing time, money, collective effort, in their own local areas.

In places like Tsholotsho the local community has come together to repair 60km of the Siphepha-Zabagwadi Road and in Nyabane, Plumtree, the local community has teamed up with diaspora to build a clinic that provides free health care.

There’s good news. Much of what needs to shift is already shifting – quietly, significantly, irreversibly. The absent predatory state, and the pernicious and exploitative nature of its key actors has driven people and communities to look inward for solutions. That process itself has been a process of democratic renewal. A rediscovering of new forms of organising and participation that are directly linked to tangible local economic development outcomes. The orientation maybe economic but the proceeses are democratic.

Across the breath and scope of the country examples abound of people democratically harnessing the collective power of the local and diaspora communities to organise, plan, act together to bring back local economic development to their local areas or communities. The power of technology cannot be understated here.

People are reclaiming their power in far more profound and meaningful ways that bring tangible change to their own lives. They may not be on the streets protesting but they are on social media- identifying, discussing organising to fix real problems, mobilising financial and other resources from across the globe for their communities. This is a welcome shift in democratic participation. It anchors change in local participation, self-action and local development activism. It is not a replacement of national political engagement but a crucial reconfiguration of politics as we have always known it. It is also a crucial building block to what can become a new new national politics. It negates political polarisation, promotes collaboration, and essentialises economic transformation.

It rightly can, should and will redefine politics going forward. Local leaders emerge from these processes – inside the country and in the diaspora. Local economies are revitalised bringing new meaning to impactful democratic participation. Local pride and self worth recultivated. Local agency rebuilt. New sites and forms of resistance to pernicious and extractive elites mobilized. It is a model that must be supported and encouraged. It is a model that can and should outlive the defunct national politics that must be permanently eliminated.

So to conclude – the most significant political and economic change happening across Zimbabwe is invisible to the naked eye but profoundly tangible to the people driving and experiencing its impact.

Siphosami Malunga is a human rights lawyer