For Chris Mapua it is hard now to recall the tyranny of Robert Mugabe. Life in Zimbabwe is more wretched and often more terrifying under the rule of the man who toppled him.
“This is what passes for skilled labour,” Mapua said, taking a filthy, ragged $5 note, polishing it with a lemon and delicately glueing it into one piece. He trained to become a teacher, but can make more on Harare’s streets buying up decrepit greenbacks that are rejected by shops, restoring them and selling them on. Once one of Africa’s most educated and thriving economies, Zimbabwe is a nation of bright hawkers where millions are starving.
A general election on Wednesday offers the illusion that Zimbabweans can put an end to more than
