Source: Mnangagwa’s fate: All eyes on Mugabe – DailyNews Live
Fungi Kwaramba 18 September 2017
HARARE – Like one at the end of a bungee rope, Vice President Emmerson
Mnangagwa always springs back while those who love the nerve-wrecking
sport talk of their experiences.
After falling sick in Gwanda last month, his allies were holding their
breath.
The more daring ones kept claiming he was poisoned by political rivals in
the high-stakes succession race that has broken out in Zanu PF.
Government insists he probably ate stale-food hence his vomiting and
running stomach at an interface rally held in Gwanda where President
Robert Mugabe was meeting party youths.
But poison or no poisoning, theories fly, and in a party where scores have
been rumoured to have been settled through accidents, contrived or just
accidents, everything is possible.
Mnangagwa is linked to the Team Lacoste faction and is tipped by his
supporters to succeed Mugabe who turns 94 in February next year.
Standing in his way is the Generation 40 (G40) faction which deems him
unfit for the top office.
Mnangagwa, who is 74 (some records say he is 70), is now apparently out of
danger after the Gwanda incident but his political life continues to hang
by the thread.
It is not unfair to therefore ask if he is about to exhaust his proverbial
nine lives, an apt question, after all his life is full of near death
escapes.
Like a pendulum, Mnangagwa has had his ups and downs.
He has lost elections, lost political battles, lost close friends and in
1965 nearly lost his life.
But somehow he has always emerged to fight another day like the ancient
reptile, the crocodile, from which he derives his moniker – Ngwena.
In 1965 – as part of the crocodile gang that specialised in sabotage and
terrorising white Rhodesians – Mnangagwa was arrested and convicted of
taking part in the killing of a Chimanimani farmer and police reservist,
Petrus Oberholtzer, at Nyanyadzi; as well as sabotaging a locomotive train
in Fort Victoria – now Masvingo.
This resulted in the hanging of his accomplices, James Dhlamini and Victor
Mlambo.
But he escaped because he was under age.
With a history wrapped in mystery, some like former minister of State
Security Didymus Mutasa dismiss such theories.
“Mnangagwa was released because he was Zambian, I am not sure about his
age but then we were told that he was released because he was under age,”
said Mutasa.
Fast forward to contemporary times and Mnangagwa can claim the title of
ultimate survivor.
According to permanent secretary in the ministry of Media, Information and
Broadcasting Services George Charamba, there have been six break-ins into
Mnangagwa’s offices and last year some daring people used the ceiling to
gain access into the offices of the feared politician.
In 2014, his offices at Zanu PF headquarters were broken into and the
burglars sprinkled cyanide which harmed his secretary, while on another
occasion a leather sofa in the office was tampered with; death seemed to
always follow the feared politician.
Two years ago State media reported that Mnangagwa had been involved in a
car accident with a bus in Harare, in a case that his supporters claimed
was an attempt on his life.
Although the police have not nailed anyone for it, Mnangagwa’s allies are
convinced it is someone who wants to stop his ascendancy to the throne in
the Zanu PF game of thrones where hunters can become the hunted.
And as recent as a fortnight ago, Mnangagwa had his back against the wall
– he helplessly watched as his allies – Energy Mutodi and Mable Chinomona
were hauled over the coals.
Apart from losing the outspoken Mutodi who was fired from Zanu PF,
Mnangagwa also helplessly watched as most of his sympathisers were kicked
out while those who are opposed to him and had been on suspension were
brought back.
According to sources in Zanu PF, the idea is to isolate Mnangagwa so that
he is left with no supporters going forward.
But even as the odds are seemingly staked against him, his supporters
still believe.
The support of the army has Mnangagwa purring, after all nothing in Zanu
PF happens without the involvement of the military and even academics such
as Eldred Masunungure are convinced that when cometh the hour the gun will
lead the bullet and as sure as day follows night the crocodile will get
its meal.
Masunungure, in a recent interview with the Daily News, reasoned that in
Zimbabwe the genesis of leadership transitions goes back to the liberation
struggle where you had two wings, the political wing headed by a political
figure and the military, the commanders of Zanla.
He said there existed a symbiotic relationship between the military and
the politicians and it outlived the country’s independence.
“The party and the military are still there, and that is what we still
have. I am not talking about the foot soldiers but the security chiefs
they have historical experiences with the political establishment and it
is an imperative, it is compelling for them to be actively involved in the
affairs of the party and that includes a determination of who will succeed
Mugabe. I have absolutely no doubt that the military will be a decisive
force in determining the president’s successor,” said Masunungure.
Mnangagwa is friend to Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Constantino
Chiwenga.
He has, since independence, been trusted with crucial ministries such as
Defence and State Security, and headed these at crucial junctures in the
history of the country.
According to political analyst Dewa Mavhinga all things are hazy until the
rise of the sun.
“Where Zanu PF is concerned, it is difficult to know for sure what happens
inside the party and therefore almost impossible to say whether Mnangagwa
is the ultimate survivor or not. Even the alleged poisoning of Mnangagwa
is difficult to verify in the absence of a police report and of medical
records,” he said.
“But what is clear is that over the last 40 years a lot has depended on
Mugabe within Zanu PF. In fact, when Mnangagwa lost elections for Member
of Parliament in Kwekwe, it was Mugabe who rescued him and appointed him a
non-constituency MP, so Mnangagwa’s power should not be exaggerated but
seen in the context of Mugabe’s tactical manoeuvres,” said Mavhinga.
But Maxwell Saungweme, an Afghanistan-based political scientist, said
there is more at stake and a collapse of the centre that certainly no
longer holds.
“In an intransigent, perfidious, duplicitous and shifty political aura
Zimbabwe is under, a lot of conspiracy theories follow any action by
perceived thespians in the country’s political comedy…there is no longer
one Zanu PF, no more one centre of power, but two main factions of the
party and multiple centres of power. The centres of power include Mugabe,
Grace, the military, Ngwena and sneaky characters such as (Higher and
Tertiary Education minister) Jonathan Moyo,” said Saungweme.
Whatever the situation is, Mnangagwa’s loyalists believe that if no one
can stop the rain then no one could stop their main man’s march to State
House, and the camp has adopted a popular song to spice it up.
Mudhara Achauya, a popular track by contemporary musician Jah Prayzah is
often played by the faction, which believes Mnangagwa is about to become
the country’s next president and no amount of hurly-burly (from the G40
faction) will stop something whose time has come.
While he may be down for now, they are sure he will rise again after all
some prophets of doom had written him off in 2004 when he was involved in
the infamous Tsholotsho Declaration only for him to rise again 10 years
later as Mugabe’s deputy.
For Mnangagwa, the squabbles in Zanu PF are nothing but a constant
irritation, an aberration, part of the “new normal in Zanu PF” – a party
that is not peculiar to chilling killings of rivals since the liberation
struggle.
Like one who has gone through the mill, Mnangagwa certainly knows what
happens to the likes of Nhari who rebelled against the party leadership in
1974 or the likes of Rugare Gumbo and police Commissioner-General
Augustine Chihuri who were thrown into pits with only heads showing during
the liberation war.
“I have been in the party since 1962, I can’t remember a year when there
were no squabbles since 1962, but we are still going. The squabbles make
us stronger and more sharpened to deal with issues. If everything dies and
there are no squabbles, and there is nothing, I would be very worried.
When these things happen, you now know what people are thinking and you
know what to do to resolve the misthinking,” he was once quoted saying.
Perhaps he knows, perhaps he doesn’t; only time will tell.
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