Akash Bagaria. Originally published in Spring 2018.

On November 21, 2017, Robert Mugabe—the world’s oldest head of state—stepped down as president after lawmakers introduced a motion of impeachment. Having once proclaimed that “only God can remove me,” the 93-year-old Mugabe begrudgingly renounced the throne while generals encircled the presidential palace with tanks, ending his 37-year grip on power. Sworn in as Zimbabwe’s next president was Emerson Mnangagwa, until recently Mugabe’s right-hand man.

Mugabe’s legacy is controversial. To some in Zimbabwe, Mugabe will always remain a hero. A teacher-turned-revolutionary, Mugabe spearheaded the liberation war and overthrew the white minority rule that had subjugated blacks in Zimbabwe, formerly the British colony of Rhodesia. To others, Mugabe was a self-serving, power-hungry dictator who stooped to any level to preserve his authority. What is indisputable, however, is that his successor faces a tough road ahead.

Mnangagwa must reverse the damage that Mugabe’s counterintuitive economic policies wreaked on Zimbabwe. Once dubbed the “breadbasket of Africa,” Zimbabwe now requires foreign aid to feed its people. While Africa overall has enjoyed a growth boom, Zimbabwe’s economy roughly halved in size from US$8.5 billion in 1997 to US$4.4 billion in 2007; unemployment presently hovers around a staggering 90 percent. The economic meltdown can largely be attributed to Mugabe’s notorious land reform, which encouraged the violent seizure of white-owned farms in 2000. Mugabe sought to empower black Zimbabweans, asserting that since white colonialists had snatched their lands, he could do the same, “If white settlers just took the land from us without paying for it, we can, in a similar way, just take it from them without paying for it.” In an effort to secure loyalty among his party, Mugabe gifted confiscated lands to his followers, even if they lacked basic knowledge about agricultural practices. This land reform had crippling economic consequences: from 2000 to 2009, agriculture revenue plummeted by roughly US$12 billion.

Mugabe’s decision to print money to the point of hyperinflation did not improve the situation. His land reform precipitated the country’s worst famine in over 60 years, prompting Zimbabwe to seek food from abroad. To finance the food imports, pay off debts, and continue compensating war veterans—a cornerstone of Mugabe’s political platform—Mugabe turned to the money-printing machines. Mugabe’s economic ineptitude prompted the worst case of hyperinflation since the Weimar Republic—so bad, in fact, that Zimbabwe had to abandon its sunken currency for the US dollar. The inflation rate surged to 231 million percent in 2008, which required the country to create notes as large as the US$100 trillion Zimbabwe-dollar bill.

In many respects, Mugabe appeared to also have a rather insatiable lust for power. Back in 2008, Mugabe stated, “If you lose an election and are rejected by the people, it is time to leave politics.” Yet when Morgan Tsvangirai outdid him in the polls, Mugabe unleashed his personal guerilla-style militia to maintain his iron fist, compelling Tsvangirai to drop out in order to save the lives of his supporters. Mugabe established that he would only respect the will of the people if they voted in his favor. Mugabe’s vote-rigging craftiness did not stop there. According to the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, Mugabe won the elections of 2013 through a “systematic effort to disenfranchise an estimated one million voters.” The electoral rolls excluded voters from urban areas, which generally plumped for the opposition; furthermore, the electoral rolls included the names of voters within the Mugabe base who were, in fact, deceased. It’s no surprise, therefore, that Mugabe made a concentrated effort to conceal the elections and prohibit Europe and the United States from sending electoral monitors. Furthermore, as Mugabe firmly planted himself as ruler, he embraced corruption and shared the spoils of his misrule with his loyalists. Grace Mugabe, his second wife, was unsurprisingly caught in several corruption cases. Nicknamed “Gucci Grace,” she was known for her extravagant spending—and a Zimbabwean anti-corruption agency even investigated whether she had fraudulently obtained her PhD. Corruption, simply put, ran rampant under Mugabe.

Mnangagwa has much to fix, and unfortunately, his character is far from unstained. Mugabe had exiled Mnangagwa in order to clear the way for his wife to to assume the presidency. But there certainly has not always been bad blood between the two former liberation fighters. Widely referred to as “The Crocodile,” Mnangagwa was once one of Mugabe’s top henchmen, faithfully serving as his election-rigger. Mnangagwa not only was complicit in the humanitarian crises of the Mugabe regime, but played an integral role in stirring them. During the ethnic massacres of the 1980s—which, according to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, led to the deaths of over 20,000 Ndebele people in the Matabeleland region—Mnangagwa was in charge of intelligence services and deemed the Ndebele slaughter to be a justifiable means to squash dissent. Mnangagwa has also faced allegations of rigging the 2008 election campaign as well as utilizing the Zimbabwean Defense Forces to profit from illegally mined diamonds. Mnangagwa, despite being the Zimbabwean ruler, thus remains under US sanctions, which the United States announced were instituted in response to Mnangagwa’s “acts of violence and other human rights abuses against political opponents.”

Having risen to power through a de facto military coup, Mnangagwa has shown that he will not reject Mugabe’s cronyism. In an effort to consolidate power, Mnangagwa has awarded top political positions to the military generals, and now Retired Major General Sibusiso Moyo, Chief Air Marshall Perrence Shiri, and Army Chief Constantino Chiwenga all hold powerful positions in Mnangagwa’s government. This is worrying: a partisan Zimbabwean military has historically interfered with elections, and Mnangagwa’s behavior raises concerns that he may feel beholden to the military generals.

Yet Mnangagwa has, in other regards, proven to be quite strong. Most importantly, whereas the Zimbabwean economy severed worsened under Mugabe, Mnangagwa has doggedly pursued much-needed economic reform. Mnangagwa repealed the notorious “indigenization” law, which had mandated that firms be majority-owned by black Zimbabweans. Mugabe had exploited this law as an excuse to gift high-level corporate positions to his personal supporters; Mnangagwa, on the other hand, has been prioritizing the economic wellbeing of Zimbabwe. In hopes of bolstering the dwindling economy, Mnangagwa must focus on reviving the agriculture sector. Agriculture, after all, serves as the underpinning of the Zimbabwean economy: 92 percent of households in Zimbabwe primarily obtain their livelihood from agriculture. Indeed, Mnangagwa has paid close attention to agriculture. To reconcile the dispossessed white landowners, Mnangagwa has promised to compensate them for their seized lands and focused on assuring them that his government, unlike Mugabe’s, will respect property rights.

Mnangagwa also seems to grasp the importance of building and preserving ties with the international community. He has exhibited a desire for Zimbabwe to be on good terms with the United Kingdom, even claiming that he would be open to Zimbabwe rejoining the Commonwealth. Mugabe, on the contrary, had completely shunned the United Kingdom and quit the Commonwealth in 2003, in response to the Commonwealth’s demand that Mugabe restore democracy. Mnangagwe will make the unprecedented move to travel to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum, following his plan to draw international capital back to Zimbabwe. Additionally, whereas Mugabe chose to keep his relentless vote-rigging behind closed doors, Mnangagwe has invited international observers to examine the upcoming national elections. These elections, which Mnangagwe will hold months earlier than constitutionally mandated, will be crucial to creating a more positive impression in the global community.

The conditions, unfortunately, are just right for another dictatorship: a weak and splintered opposition, a disenchanted populous, and a deep-seated state of poverty and corruption. To think that Mnangagwe will suddenly embrace justice and hold fair elections is, at best, naïve. Mnangagwe could not have been called democracy-loving or rule-abiding under Mugabe. But perhaps, Mnangagwe can make change. Perhaps Mnangagwe can prove that indeed, he is not just Mugabe’s protégé.