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The action by the police - backed up by the court - to ban the MDC Alliance protests in Harare on August 16, and in other cities in the following days, combined with the police violence in Harare, has kept the country deadlocked on how to go forward.

The economic collapse in Zimbabwe continues to deepen, with the government suspending publication of inflation figures until next February, and a prediction of at least a 3 per cent contraction in the economy overall – a recession. Electricity, water, cash, fuel and food are in short supply.

The Mnangagwa government continues to talk up its economic strategy, while the reality of power failures, fuel shortages, job losses and high inflation continues to hurt the community. The MDC and the trade union movement (ZCTU) are planning a new round of mass protests in response, in mid-August.

June 24 is the day that the Zimbabwe Dollar was reinstated and transactions in foreign currency were banned, as the Mnangagwa government struggled to eliminate price manipulation and black market currency exchange that has been fueling 100 per cent inflation.

Electricity shortages have added to the burden of high inflation – now 100 per cent - and cash shortages in Zimbabwe, provoking a nurses go-slow action and widespread calls for wages to be paid in US dollars.

Zimbabwe security forces have cracked down hard with the arrest of seven civil society activists returning to the country from workshops in Prague and the Maldives amid rumours of violent mass protests against the government in June.