You might want to pay this some attention” was the cryptic note from a long-standing Zimbabwean friend, attached to an article from Zimbabwe’s State-owned Herald newspaper: “There’s no ‘noise in the cockpit’, as there is oneness, unity of purpose and true comradeship in the country’s Presidium . . . The popularity of the government of Zimbabwe and the leadership of President ED Mnangagwa continues to grow, to the extent that, if we were to hold a plebiscite or referendum, it would be a foregone conclusion, for we have already won the hearts and minds of the people of Zimbabwe.”

This, Zimbabwe’s Soviet-era/North Korea-like double-speak, gave an immediate sense that there were indeed moves afoot to remove the ruling Zanu-PF’s Mnangagwa and end his party’s catastrophic rule.

I raised it with an Uber driver in Cape Town – one of the millions of young workers Zanu-PF’s economic misrule have expatriated to South Africa and the wider world. Words tumbled out in his excitement at the prospect of political change at home: yes, the “war veterans” were forcing internal change within the former liberation party. What the veterans proposed was an end to the current leadership, the establishment of a national transition council consisting of technocrats to run the country while a constitutional conference charted a new political dispensation.

The kernel of truth that had given rise to such faraway optimism were reports that war veteran Blessed Geza – a member of the ruling party’s central committee – had called for Mnangagwa’s resignation for nepotism, economic mismanagement and his apparent plans to extend his Presidency beyond the constitutional two-term limit ending in 2028. Geza had apparently given public voice to growing disgruntlement within Zanu-PF, but instead of provoking change, it led to his expulsion from the party and a crackdown. Loyalist and Zanu-PF secretary for legal affairs Patrick Chinamasa called Geza’s remarks “treasonous”, claiming they undermined party unity and State authority. The party’s loyal politburo quicky expelled Geza, fearing a broader internal revolt. Also expelled were two Parliamentarians. The journalist who reported Geza’s remarks in November and again in January was arrested on charges of distributing “data messages inciting violence”.

The only real prospect of change will come from within Zanu-PF’s ranks. Since the death of veteran opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition has been weak, proven to be corruptible and easily put into disarray. The question with Zimbabwe is always: When will dissatisfaction and disillusion seep into the ranks of Zanu-PF sufficiently to create real pressure for change a brutal State security apparatus will not hold back? Zimbabwe’s two-decade-long economic decay has left many distressed and, except for an increasingly narrow group that Zanu-PF patronises, dependent on remittances from relatives working abroad. Mnangagwa supporters argue that continuity is necessary to achieve Vision 2030, a development agenda aimed at transforming Zimbabwe into an upper- middle-income economy.

As tensions rise, civil society bodies under the banner of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition have agreed to mobilise the opposition and ordinary people to unite against Mnangagwa’s 2030 push. Crucially, the influential war veterans joined the coalition. Zanu-PF fears the war veterans’ push against Mnangagwa, official commander-in-chief, will create divisions in the military. As a former army general, Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga reportedly still has allies in the military.

Since the mid-1990s, Zanu-PF has systematically turned Zimbabwe into a dysfunctional State but increasingly now into a State-sponsored criminal enterprise. Zimbabwe today is the opposite of what its spokesperson claims in double-speak in the Herald. Claims that Mnangagwa and the ruling party “continue to roll out economic empowerment programmes and projects across the country” are clearly false. At the same time as this article was published, a social media post showed tourists sitting in the craters of potholes along the Bulawayo–Victoria Falls highway.

Two decades of Zanu-PF’s control of everything from the central bank to tax and spending power has seen the party use the levers of power to siphon off money for the personal enrichment of an ever-shrinking circle. Under Zanu-PF, the country has become synonymous with organised crime from gold and cigarette smuggling to grand-scale international money laundering, contributing not only to Zimbabwe’s grey listing by the Financial Action Task Force but also to South Africa’s grey listing through Zimbabwean corruption of South African bank officials. In the last days of US President Joe Biden’s administration, the US Office of Foreign Assets Control announced it was sanctioning 28 individuals and businesses involved in a Zimbabwe-based and -led global gold smuggling and money-laundering network.

Earlier in his term, Biden sanctioned “President Mnangagwa’s criminal network of government officials and businesspeople who are most responsible for corruption or human rights abuse against the people of Zimbabwe”.

Beyond this elite, citizens from middle-class professionals to farm labourers have been left to fend for themselves amid shortages, hyperinflation and the likelihood that hard currency is laundered somewhere along the line. Outside the country, millions of Zimbabweans in exile have earned respect all over the world as highly educated, hardworking, aspiring and entrepreneurial. Collectively, expatriate Zimbabweans send billions of dollars home every year to support extended family. However, there are now many GenZ Zimbabweans born out of Zimbabwe, who will never go home but give their energy to their adoptive countries, so those flows will taper and cease.

While Zimbabwe stagnates, political and economic life has moved forward in Zimbabwe’s neighbours. Democratic elections have moulded liberation parties or made way for new leaders with new ideas, curbing corruption as each election brings change. Botswana’s elections swept out the party that had dominated since independence. In South Africa, the ANC lost its majority and has embraced the pragmatic constraints of coalition government. In Zambia, Hakainde Hichilema’s election rescued the economy from the Patriotic Front’s corrupt populism, while in Angola the centralising Marxist doctrine upheld since the 1970s has given way to liberalisation. In Mozambique, a new opposition is making its presence felt.

In Zimbabwe, really, Zanu-PF, it’s time to allow the population to say goodbye.