By Fanuel James
The crackdown on vendors has all the ingredients for unrest, livelihoods destroyed, municipal police clashing with traders in the CBD, videos of running battles circulating daily.
But ingredients are not a fire.
Zimbabwe’s last attempt at a people-led uprising was Blessed Geza’s March 31st protests.
It failed completely.
Not because people weren’t angry, but because of two cold realities that still apply today.
First, the state has made the cost of protesting too high.
Heavy police deployment, checkpoints, pre-emptive arrests, and the public memory of January 2019.
That was the last serious street demonstration, when soldiers shot 17 people dead during the fuel price protests.
People are, as UZ analyst Eldred Masunungure put it, “rational enough to know the dangers of confronting the coercive arms of the state”.
Second, survival beats politics.
Geza’s indefinite stay-away collapsed because, as Masunungure noted, for a vendor who eats what they sell that day, a shutdown is “suicide.”
Most traders stayed home on March 31 out of fear, not defiance.
Businesses closed to avoid looting, not to support Geza.
Similarities With Chenesa Harare
Chenesa Harare hits that same survival nerve.
Vendors are angry, but they are atomized.
There is no union, no opposition party trusted to lead them, no war veteran figure they believe in after Geza died in exile in South Africa.
History tells us: 2005’s Operation Murambatsvina displaced 700,000 people and did not trigger an uprising.
2025’s Geza call did not.
A vendor sweep in 2026 will produce short, sharp skirmishes, court fines, and eventual retreat to back streets not a revolution.
The risk for government is not an uprising. It is slow, grinding legitimacy loss.
———————————————————————————————————
Love what we do?
We’re dedicated to opening up democracy, one article, video and story at a time. If you find our reporting helpful, you can support the Magamba Network team by buying us a coffee. It’s quick, easy, and makes a real difference!
————————————————————————————————————
