Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa has described Western sanctions against his country as illegal and called for them to be removed.
The southern African nation has been struggling for close to two decades and is currently grappling with 18-hour daily power cuts and shortages of foreign exchange, fuel and medicines.
While Mnagagwa’s supporters denounced the measures during marches held around the country, many have questioned the president’s handling of the country’s economy.
The EU and United States imposed financial and travel bans on ZANU-PF and top military figures for alleged human rights abuses and electoral fraud. The government says the measures are punishment for its seizures of white-owned farms.
Mnangagwa has so far failed to unify the country since taking over from the late Robert Mugabe, who was ousted in a coup in 2017.
Hopes of a swift recovery have faded as the economy struggles to exit its deepest crisis in a decade.
Mnangagwa, like Mugabe, blames the sanctions imposed by the United States and European Union since 2001 for the economic ills and says they are intended to remove his party from power.
“Every part and sector of our economy has been affected by these sanctions like a cancer. Enough is enough, remove them. Remove these sanctions now,” Mnangagwa told a few thousand supporters inside a 60,000-seater national stadium.
The poor attendance showed the difficulties that Mnangagwa faces in mobilising party members still divided between Mugabe’s supporters and those who ousted him.
While the government ran documentaries and articles in the official press criticising sanctions, the U.S. and EU embassies took to social media to rebut the official narrative.
U.S. Ambassador Brian Nichols wrote an article in a private newspaper on Thursday saying “the greatest sanctions on Zimbabwe are the limitations that the country places on itself”.
He said the United States remained the biggest donor to Zimbabwe, but corruption and lack of reform had dragged down the economy.
The EU now only keeps sanctions on Mugabe and his wife Grace and Zimbabwe Defence Industries.
Harare says the U.S. sanctions have been the most devastating. These bar U.S. officials at the International Monetary Fund and World Bank from voting for debt relief or fresh lending for Zimbabwe.
In March, President Donald Trump extended by one year sanctions against 141 entities and individuals in Zimbabwe, including Mnangagwa.
