2017 coup allies Mnangagwa, Chiwenga turn sworn enemies in succession battle

By Newshawks

Since the 2017 coup, the political touch-and-go relationship between President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his co-deputy Constantino Chiwenga has deteriorated from a fragile alliance to an open and bitter succession battle amid a dangerous escalation last week.

 

The former allies, who orchestrated the November 2017 military coup which ousted the late former president Robert Mugabe, are now engaged in an increasingly explosive and deadly power struggle within the ruling Zanu PF party.
As detailed by The NewsHawks last week, Chiwenga confronted Mnangagwa over succession, corruption and demand for action at a recent explosive politburo meeting.

 

The political kerfuffle between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga led to an immediate backlash by the President and his political allies, including politburo changes and escalating factionalism.
The intense dispute unfolded during a politburo meeting on 17 September, where Chiwenga presented a corruption dossier implicating several of key Mnangagwa’s allies, including multi-millionaires Kudakwashe Tagwirei, Wicknell Chivayo and Pedzisayo “Scott” Sakupwanya, among others.

 

Chiwenga is said to be planning to fight back, something which will further escalate the battle.
The alliance that led the 2017 coup was built on a calculated power-sharing arrangement and a share of the spoils, which has since collapsed.

 

After Chiwenga’s military forces helped install Mnangagwa as president following his dismissal by Mugabe and a subsequent escape into exile in South Africa, it was widely understood the arrangement included a handover of power to Chiwenga in 2023 as the incumbent would serve one term.
However, that did not happen. Instead Mnangagwa went for a second term and now before he could even finish it, he wants a two-year extension of his rule to 2030 and possibly a third term, something Chiwenga would never have imagined, although Mugabe warned him about the dangers of installing the Zanu PF strongman in power.
In the middle of the coup, Mugabe called Chiwenga through mediator former Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono and encouraged him to takeover power.

 

The late fallen authoritarian confirmed this to journalists at his Borrowdale Blue Roof mansion on 15 March 2018, his last interviews on that day, being the only ones he did after the coup.
The other engagement was a press conference just before the 2018 elections where out of bitterness, he endorsed main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa instead of his protégé Mnangagwa who had rebelled against him.
When Mugabe offered to help Chiwenga takeover – some say out of ethnic preference – the former army commander balked.

 

He gave the reins of power to Mnangagwa to start a new chapter of controversial reign after Mugabe’s disastrous 37 years in office.
A huge mistake he now regrets.
Almost immediately after taking office, Mnangagwa began consolidating power, sidelining and purging his internal political rivals.
In 2018, Mnangagwa stripped Chiwenga of his dual role as Vice-President and Minister of Defence and War Veterans, a move seen as an effort to shrink his power base.
Later, he also removed him as Minister of Health.

 

Chiwenga was deprived of the two ministerial portfolios that he needed for consolidation and fight for control of the levers of state power.
This was a classic post-coup scenario where the new leader starts by removing those who installed him in power as he now feared they would also remove him.
Chiwenga practically installed Mnangagwa in power through a coup, naively believing he would rule one term and then give him a chance to take over.

 

The NewsHawks journalists – then working for Zimbabwe Independent newspaper – repeatedly warned Chiwenga about that danger, just as they also warned their publisher for compromising – and selling out – independent reporting and editorial independence for a position in Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF government and for business and financial prospects.
For Chiwenga, that proved politically naive and fatal as Mnangagwa ruthlessly consolidated power soon after coming in, weathering the storm of military control following the coup.

 

Now that Mnangagwa is fully in charge, having purged all those who were key and influential in the coup, and now pushing to extend his rule to 2030, what happens next?
Although Mnangagwa denies that he wants to extend his rule, ironically claiming tk be a “constitutionalist”, his allies say he is behind the move.
After putting Mnangagwa in power, Chiwenga is now fighting against the odds to restore his military leverage which is now slipping away.

 

What is not helping matters is that Chiwenga is surrounded by poor political strategists and broke and hungry businessmen who just want to steal from him to line their pockets instead of backing his critical campaign.
Some of his allies and advisers are clueless.
They don’t even understand the basics of political strategy, how to win state power and the importance of communication and controlling the narrative.
While Chiwenga still has huge military, party and institutional support, that is now being fast squandered by his incompetent and hungry allies who – like G40 before them – want to run such a huge campaign to gain state power on chicken feed.
While Chiwenga’s camp is running on empty on wherewithal, the Mnangagwa faction is loaded with millions and the role of money in the fight is clearly showing.

 

That is allowing Mnangagwa – who has indisputably failed to turn around the country – to almost secure an extension to his mediocre rule, a third term in some respects.
Mnangagwa’s purges have been ruthless.
Some allies were redeployed, removed and others died under mysterious circumstances.
Chiwenga barely survived an undisclosed illness, including suspected to be poisoning.
Without Chinese intervention, he would be gone.

 

Still, Mnangagwa’s allies want Chiwenga out.
The battle between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga is now fast becoming a do or die affair.
Prior to the latest round of deadly infighting, among many fights, there was the June 2018 Bulawayo White City Stadium grenade attack that signalled inherent danger in the coup deal and the heightening power struggle already underway.

 

Mnangagwa, who views Chiwenga as an overly ambitious junior, judging by his previous interview with a British magazine, also benefitted from the role of political contingency: The unexpected, accidental, and the inforeseen, particularly deaths of key military and political figures like Sibusiso Busi Moyo, Perrence Shiri and many senior army commanders.

 

Some military leaders who helped the coup like former Presidential Guard and Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) commander Lieutenant-General Anseelem Sanyatwe were removed and made diplomats.
Sanyatwe was brought back as ZNA commander in October 2023 with Chiwenga’s support, but removed ahead of a planned March 31 anti-Mnangagwa uprising earlier this year, which dismally failed.
This was being fronted by war veterans leader Blessed Geza, an ineffective political strategy.

 

Chiwenga has never hidden his desire for the presidency.
Since the power transfer did not occur as planned, his faction has now become increasingly impatient with Mnangagwa.
His political allies and even former wife Marry Mubaiwa have confirmed that he wants to be President.
He had hoped to have been in power during the last election.
That was the basis of his coup deal with Mnangagwa.

 

It was a gentleman’s agreement: Let’s have a coup, you come in as the civilian face and serve one term, and I will take over in 2023.
Now that Mnangagwa has clearly betrayed his erstwhile political ally, the question is: What will Chiwenga do?
Does he have the guts and capacity to do anything?
Is Chiwenga’s leverage still strong enough to stop Mnangagwa?
His liberation struggle record, coup experience and bold anti-corruption campaign suggests he has the capacity, political will and determination to fight Mnangagwa, yet some reviews of his credentials and performance suggests he doesn’t have, particularly without some of his removed and dead colleagues, for instance SB Moyo.

 

In a damning 2010 appraisal of Chiwenga contained in leaked Wikileaks cables, Zimbabwe’s Brigadier-General Herbert Chingono and Major-General Fidelis Satuku told then United States ambassador to Harare Charles Ray that Chiwenga was not strategic and decisive.
“General Constantine (now Constantino) Chiwenga is a political general who works hard, but who has very little practical experience or expertise,” the diplomatic cables said.
“Given a choice between a military and political issue, Chiwenga will always choose the political because he doesn’t know enough about the military to be comfortable discussing it.”

 

The cables said Chiwenga is a “political general” who works hard, but who has “very little practical military experience or
expertise”.
A political commissar in Zanu during the liberation struggle, he has only attended one mid-level training course, which he did not complete.
However, Chiwenga later controversially studied for a Masters’ degree at the University of Zimbabwe and PhD from the University of KwaZulu-Natal amid claims he hired people to help him in his studies.

 

The cables continue: “If given a choice between a military and a
political issue, he routinely defaults to the political. His
goal is to be in politics when his tenure ends as defence
chief, and he will be very disappointed if he fails to achieve that goal.”
As the US cables predicted, Chiwenga has ended up in politics, but his limitations have been exposed as Mnangagwa runs rings around him.
The claim he defaults to politics when faced with a military choice seems to be true, judging by what has been happening since January.

 

Although, he tried in January 2019 to militarily stop Mnangagwa when he was in Russia and Eastern Europe amid public protests over fuel prices and the economic crisis, his colleagues, particularly Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Phillip Valerio Sibanda, refused to cooperate.
Now Sibanda is now emerging as a possible Chiwenga rival in the succession fight.
Sibanda is said to be the real Mnangagwa choice, not Tagwirei as widely thought.

 

But then again Chiwenga has shown courage, political will of steel and great determination to fight Mnangagwa.
He took head-on in the recent politburo meeting over corruption, but suffered a heavy backlash.
Now it is Chiwenga’s time to show that his critics were wrong by pulling it off.

 

It will not be picnic.
His options are fast-narrowing.
When he started the current fight openly in January, he still had power, especially because Sanyatwe had returned from Tanzania where had been posted as ambassador to become the ZNA commander.
That had restored his military leverage which was removed in March when Sanyatwe was appointed Sports minister to replace Kirsty Coventry who is now International Olympic Committee president.

 

The move was designed and calculated to thwart a possible looming coup and Chiwenga’s presidential ambitions.
Since January, the succession rivalry has erupted into the public view with a series of political manoeuvres and escalating political tensions.
Mnangagwa’s camp has been pushing for a constitutional amendment to extend his rule beyond the two-term limit, which would enable him to stay in power until 2030.

 

Chiwenga’s faction, which includes many war veterans, sees this as a betrayal of their 2017 agreement.
The resultant infighting has spilled onto state institutions and social media, with both factions using government machinery, state resources and online campaigns to attack each other and garner public support.
Amid all that, the succession power struggle is defined by deep mistrust, political intrigue, and whispered plots to even harm each other.

 

Growing fears of poisoning and accidents, long a feature of Zimbabwean politics, have re-emerged within Zanu PF circles.
Political analysts and civil society groups have warned that the escalating internal Zanu PF battle could ignite wider national turmoil.
Yet the ball is now firmly in Chiwenga’s court ahead of the ruling party’s annual conference in Mutare next month and possible amendments to the constitution to extend Mnangagwa’s rule beyond his 2028 second term constitutional limit to 2030, or a third term.
The question remains: What will Chiwenga do to stop Mnangagwa, the man he proudly installed in power against better advice from Mugabe and many other people.

 

While Mnangagwa can afford defeat, and negotiate an exit, it is a do or die for Chiwenga.

 

Newshawks