Viva el General: Political Saviours or Liberal Democracy Undertakers?

This paper interrogates whether Zimbabwe under the "2 nd Republic," has shaken off the ZANU-PF authoritarian tendencies by becoming more democratic.The paper employs the concept of the law of continued repression.The researcher employed the desktop research, using data gathered from journal articles, the internet, documentaries, and e-books. The research method is suitable for this paper because it allows the gathering of information and insights by examining and synthesizing gathered data. In this paper I argue that democracy remains a pipedream, the coup was in fact a means to an end. It provided the platform for continued primitive accumulation and self-enrichment that had started during Mugabe's reign. The '2 nd Republic' has become an architect of a poor governance and macroeconomic environment which is precipitating a cycle of repression, poor economic performance, incipient instability and corruption evidenced by the Gold Mafia documentary by Aljazeera that unearthed deep rooted gold smuggling. The 2002 'Zvinavashe doctrine' that culminated in the November 2017 coup "triggered a self-perpetuating process that is resistant to change." The import of the 'Zvinavashe doctrine' is that choices or decisions that were made in support of the so called '3 rd Chimurenga' (war for economic emancipation), that begun in 2000 embedded in land restitution, set Zimbabwe on a political developmental trajectory that explains the degree of militarization, politicization and authoritarianism that has become a permanent phenomenon in Zimbabwean politics. The ZANU-PF political elites including the president are more interested in not disturbing the mechanics of primitive accumulation by 'ZANUISTS' (the security sector leadership, ZANU-PF patrons and their clients) explaining why they have pursued zero-sum politics after the 2023 election. A majority of the Zimbabwean citizenry blame retired General Chiwenga, the chief coup plotter who they had hailed in 2017 for the current state of political and economic affairsZimbabweans are experiencing.The 2 nd Republic under the stewardship of Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, Constantino Chiwenga, Kembo Mohadi and the junta are far from being vehicles of democratic consolidation but are democracy undertakers.