“It’s back to extreme volatility,” Iraj Abedian the CEO of Pan African Investments told AFP from Johannesburg. “We can expect fairly radical positions that will have populist support, but which will have huge implications.”
Abedian predicted banks and financial firms could become the targets of a new Mugabe government seeking to extend its programme of indigenisation, after agriculture and mining.
“The land grabs caused chaos in the agricultural sector and it took ten years for it to settle down.
“The financial sector would have a similar impact. It would cause chaos, but ZANU-PF and Mugabe seem to like that.”
Mugabe Africa’s oldest leader is a former guerrilla leader hailed as a hero of Africa’s liberation movement, guiding Zimbabwe to independence in 1980 from Britain and white minority rule.
But his military backed rule has been marked by controversial land reforms, a series of violent crackdowns, economic crises and suspect elections that have brought international sanctions and made him a pariah in the West.
As the economy in southern Africa’s former bread basket recovers from crisis, Mugabe loyalists insist their hero is “tried and tested” and dismiss concerns about his age and rumoured health problems.
Former union boss Tsvangirai won the first round of voting in 2008, but was forced out of the race after 200 of his supporters were killed and thousands more injured in suspected state backed intimidation and attacks.
This time around he announced plans to lure back foreign investors, create a million jobs in five years and improve public services in a bid to secure a long awaited victory.
But some Western analysts said this could be Tsvangirai’s last bid at the top job if the MDC fails to prevent Mugabe sweeping to a seventh term.
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