Zimbabwe’s annual inflation vaulted to 100Â 580,2% in January to set a new world record, but it is still unlikely to cause sleepless nights to President Robert Mugabe’s government facing elections in about five weeks’ time.
The jump in inflation — alarming even in the context of Zimbabwe’s extraordinarily collapsing economy — represents a massive gain of 34Â 367,9 percentage points on the December rate of 66Â 212,3%.
“The year-on-year inflation rate for the month of January 2008 as measured by the all-items consumer price index stood at 100Â 580,2%, gaining 34Â 367,9 percentage points on the December rate of 66Â 212,3%,” the government’s Central Statistical Office (CSO) said in a report shown to independent news provider ZimOnline.
The government data body said month-on-month inflation in January was 120,8%, decreasing by 119,3 percentage points on the December rate of 131,4%.
CSO acting director Moffat Nyoni was not immediately available for comment.
Analysts say the continued weakening of the local dollar and surging inflation are yet more evidence that Mugabe’s government has lost the battle to end a biting economic crisis.
Zimbabweans have also had to grapple with rising poverty, unemployment of more than 80%, shortages of essential medicines, food, electricity and foreign currency since an economic meltdown that began eight years ago and is blamed on misrule by Mugabe, who turns 84 this month.
The political and economic implosion in the Southern African country would ignite protests anywhere else and would have meant certain defeat for Mugabe’s government in local government, parliamentary and presidential elections on March 29.
However, analysts say Mugabe looks set to win another five-year term in office to take his time at the helm to more than three decades, thanks to an opposition torn apart by divisions over strategy and leadership wrangles, which undermines its ability to exploit Zimbabwe’s economic crisis. — ZimOnline