"I mind my own business," one street vendor tells the BBC, who does not want to be named. "People who speak their minds - some end up in prison. So, I keep things to myself and do what I have to do to survive."
Little has changed in this regard since President Mugabe's departure. Many ordinary people and critics still face arrest for insulting the president, say human rights lawyers.
Tendai (not his real name) sells groceries out of his car boot - washing powder, deodorant, snacks, and cooking oil are all neatly stacked up. Even though he is a university graduate with a double major in marketing and human resources management, he says being a street vendor is the only way he can earn his living because there are no jobs available.
"Things are the same or even worse since Robert Mugabe left. But while it might sound far-fetched, I still have hope about the future," he adds.
Inflation today is 268% - many times higher than it was when Mr Mugabe left office, according to data from Zimbabwe's national statistics body. Meanwhile, the proportion of Zimbabweans in extreme poverty has almost doubled - from 30% in 2017 to 50% during the coronavirus pandemic, says the World Bank.
This has driven more people into desperation.
Harare is teeming with informal traders, including more and more middle-class people selling goods from their cars. One woman sells fresh meat out of plastic bins in her van, to customers who arrive on foot or by car for smaller and smaller rations of meat - some paying as little as $0.50 (£0.42) at a time.
"Personally, I wasn't one of the people who was happy when Mugabe resigned. People didn't know that they were celebrating coming disaster," the meat vendor tells the BBC.
Zimbabweans filled the capital's streets before and after the announcement
"They thought after he left they would have bread with margarine and jam, eggs and milk - but that isn't what has happened."
Harare's streets erupted as people celebrated Mr Mugabe's resignation on 21 November 2017. A week earlier tanks had rolled onto the capital's streets as the military seized the public broadcaster and placed the 93-year-old president under house arrest.
Mr Mugabe's former vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, emerged as the hero who stood up to the strongman. He vowed to end poisonous and polarising domestic politics, to turn around the economy and repair fractured relations with Western nations.
However, sceptics pointed out that he had worked closely with Mr Mugabe for many years and had been accused of playing an instrumental role in some of the worst atrocities of the Mugabe era, and wondered whether he was really the man to deliver change. Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party remained in power.
"I went into government because I loved my country and not the coup," said award-winning author and lawyer Petina Gappah, during an online discussion held by political think-tank SAPES Trust to review the post-coup era.
She had been recruited as an advisor on international re-engagement in the ministry of foreign affairs but lasted just 18 months. She says she left in sorrow, not in anger and in disappointment, not bitterness.
"I loved my country and not the coup," says award-winning author and lawyer Petina Gappah
"Some leaders called it a miracle, we had sense that that something fresh was coming - unfortunately it didn't come," she said.
Last week's visit by a Commonwealth delegation considering Zimbabwe's readmission suggests there has been a positive shift since President Mugabe left. Such a visit would previously have been unthinkable.
Zimbabwe pulled out of the body in 2003 blaming what it called an "Anglo-Saxon unholy alliance against Zimbabwe". The year before, Zimbabwe had been suspended for human rights violations including violent takeovers of white-owned farms and the persecution of opposition members.
Zimbabwe's re-entry to the Commonwealth would be a symbolic win for President Mnangagwa's government - a sign that its quarrel with the UK over land was over, analysts have told Gappah.
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