TU) has threatened to strike soon against falling remuneration amid hyperinflation. Three months ago the unions rolled out a highly successful stay away prompting government to declare strikes illegal.
Two weeks ago, students boycotted classes and demonstrated on the streets of Harare in protest over long overdue grants and their eviction from halls of residence. They were the latest in a long line of groups – including landless peasants, trade unionists, the church, human rights organisations, judges and lawyers – expressing their opposition to Mugabe.
Unemployment has more than quadrupled since Mugabe came to power 27 years ago.
Only 20 percent of the population is formally employed. Real income per capita has plummeted. By the beginning of this year it had fallen by one-third since 1987. Inflation is more than 13,000 percent and interest rates are well over 700 percent. The value of the Zimbabwe dollar has fallen by more than 65 percent in the last year.
HIV/AIDS has taken a terrible toll. With 18 percent of people aged 15 to 49 infected with the HIV virus, Zimbabwe is one of the worst affected country in Africa. Pregnant women are infected at a 20 to 50 percent rate, and about one-third of these women will pass the virus on to their babies.
Faced with mounting opposition and riots of starving peasants, in which two people were shot dead by the security forces in March while two others were trampled in a food queue last week, the government is adopting populist policies that include indigenization laws compelling foreigners to remit majority shareholding in their enterprises to government.