(18 Apr 2018) Celebrating Independence Day for the first time without Robert Mugabe as leader since 1980 felt like a second emancipation for some Zimbabweans on Wednesday.
For others, not quite.
The southern African nation still faces persistent economic problems including cash shortages and high unemployment.
Major public hospitals have been shut down after the government fired more than 16,000 nurses for striking against low salaries and poor working conditions.
As the first post-Mugabe elections approach in the months ahead, some find hope.
Others expressed relief that for the first time since the end of white minority rule in 1980, Independence Day was free from Mugabe's often vitriolic speech against Western rivals and local opposition.
"We are seeing change", 32-year-old John Kufa told The Associated Press outside the main stadium in the capital, Harare.
As music blared and military performers entertained the crowd, vendors circulated with messages of change: campaign slogans for President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who took over in November after a military intervention led Mugabe to resign.
Mnangagwa, a longtime Mugabe ally, has promised reforms and taken steps to re-engage the opposition and the West.
Once-banned election observers from the United States and the European Union have been invited to the elections scheduled for July "to be a part of this new chapter in Zimbabwean openness, democracy and freedom", Mnangagwa said in a recent Facebook post.
A free and fair election has been cited as a deciding factor in the potential easing of sanctions.
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