disapproval. However, it is very hard to accept that a coup did not take place: even harder when the military remain in civilian life, the constitution continues to violated, and there is little meaningful engagement between the ―government‖ and the international community. While everyone sits and watches, Zimbabwe moves into an uneasy stasis, where the ―government‖ makes policy, passes budgets to implement the policies, and prepares for an election. Perhaps it is just the short time left before elections must take place that produces the inertia around condemnation, and the rather pious hope that elections can cure coups and not adherence to a constitution. Here we seem to have moved backwards in Africa, as Phillip Roessler points out. The old model for regime change, military takeover followed by elections for a civilian government, was supposed to be a thing of the past: Zimbabwe has just re-invented a new way to go back to the old model. It seems like a case of old wine in new bottles! 22nd December 2017