HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — The holiday mood is not catching on in Zimbabwe, where a currency crisis forces people to risk jail time to buy basics such as medicine and food.
Many navigate from one currency to another, tapping the black market, while the government issues salaries in forms of payment it later refuses to accept.
This is the most severe economic meltdown in a decade. "We are being asked to tighten our belts, but do the politicians know we can't even afford the belts anymore?" one critic says.
The frustration has sparked a new round of anti-government sentiment in a country that saw July's presidential election, the first without longtime leader Robert Mugabe, as a chance to start over.
New President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared the country "open for business." But citizens ask: How?
