Harare – Charles Chiondegwa is 24 years old and for most of his life he has witnessed his politician father trying to oust Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe but failing every time.

“My father has been kidnapped, his propety was destroyed and he lost a lot of business contacts when he challenged Mugabe,” said Chiondegwa, whose father Bernard belongs to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

But today Chiondegwa took to the streets of Harare with many other Zimbabweans, celebrating the fact that Mugabe was no longer president.

“My father has been contesting against this man since 2000. He has been trying to convince people that this man is bad. Investors ran out of Zimbabwe because of him and we feel that they will now come back,” he said.

The streets of Harare were quite a sight to behold as people celebrated Mugabe’s end. Some draped themselves in the country’s flag, dancing and shouting on the streets. Others hung out of the open windows of their vehicles, shouting and whistling.

At some point an army vehicle went past and some people ran to it, climbed on top chanting: soldier, soldier. Instead of rebuking them, the soldiers just let then be, raising their fists instead, celebrating with them.

Chiondegwa said he hoped that things would change for the better now.

“What we want is employment and infrastructure development. At the moment we have two million Zimbabweans living in South Africa; that’s not normal. We hope whoever comes will learn from what happened. We want to return to normal governance,” Chiondegwa said.

Vivian Mashavave said seeing the end of Mugabe’s reign means he’ll be able to plan his future as it had been difficult to do so while Mugabe was in power.

“We could not prosper as a nation because of one man’s selfishness. Now we will go around with our heads held high,” he said.

The Star