The Weaponisation of the Coronavirus Crisis in Zimbabwe

Abstract

This article sets out to examine the legal and extra-legal instruments deployed by the ruling executive-military alliance in the fight against the scourge of the COVID-19 pandemic in Zimbabwe. The ruling executive-military alliance led by President Emmerson Mnangagwa has responded to the eruption of the coronavirus by adopting a highly securitised approach backed by a battery of legal and extra-legal instruments. It is therefore the argument of this article that the Mnangagwa administration has weaponised COVID-19 in order to achieve some objectives beyond the public health concerns. In particular, the government has sought to use the lockdown measures to clamp down on political opposition, silence critics, contain the restive population, and entrench its power and control over some key accountability institutions, including the legislature, the judiciary, and the media. The article concludes by canvassing for the de-securitisation and de-weaponisation of COVID-19. This means shifting the concept of securitisation of public health threat from a state-centred focus that privileges government and state security apparatuses to one that accentuates people as the main beneficiaries of the fight against this deadly coronavirus pandemic.