Meet the force behind Zimbabwe’s ‘Crocodile’ President
His wife is a beauty queen, his troops unseated Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, and his motorcade is fit for a president. General Constantino Chiwenga, head of the armed forces until earlier this month, is on a roll.
On 15 December his 10-vehicle convoy, complete with soldiers toting AK-47 assault rifles, roared into a congress of the ruling ZANU-PF party. It was one of several displays of power by Zimbabwe’s generals since they helped oust Mugabe, the southern African nation’s ruler of 37 years, on 21 November.
Ostensibly Chiwenga, 61, is subordinate to the veteran politician who replaced Mugabe as president: Emmerson Mnangagwa, nicknamed the Crocodile. Mnangagwa, 75, was sworn in on 24 Nov.ember and promised to hold elections in 2018.
But since Mugabe was deposed and Mnangagwa installed, moves by senior military men have suggested the president is the junior partner in an army-dominated administration. Following a month of speculation about his role in Mnangagwa’s government, Chiwenga was named vice president on 23 December. He was also appointed defence minister on 29 December, so retaining control of the military.
That perception of Mnangagwa’s disempowerment is buttressed by reports seen by Reuters from inside Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO). “The generals have tasted power and they are not willing to let it go,” reads one intelligence report, dated Nov. 29. “They want to enjoy the fruits of removing Mugabe from power.”
Another report, from Nov. 22, described the backroom negotiations to form a postMugabe government. “Chiwenga is the one going to have final say as power is in his hands. He is now the most feared man in government and party as well as the whole country,” it said.
The documents reviewed by Reuters are the latest installments in a series of hundreds of intelligence reports the news agency has seen from inside the CIO dating back to 2009. Reuters has not been able to determine their intended audience, but the documents cover every aspect of Zimbabwean political life over the last eight years - Mugabe, the top echelons of his ZANU-PF party, the military, opposition parties and the white business community. In the dying days of Mugabe’s regime, the CIO—the principal organ of Mugabe’s police state—split into two factions. One served the interests of Mnangagwa, the other those of his main political rival, Grace Mugabe, the president’s 52-year-old wife, according to several Zimbabwean intelligence sources.
Much of the content of the CIO reports has turned out to be correct, including an intelligence finding reported by Reuters in September that the army was backing then vicepresident Mnangagwa to take over from Mugabe. in the country’s politics.” Mnangagwa’s lawyer, Edwin Manikai, said the president wanted to “work with anybody who adds value to the economy,” in line with the new leader’s stated desire to halt Zimbabwe’s precipitous economic decline under Mugabe. Mugabe’s removal started with soldiers entering Harare on 14 November. The generals dubbed their project “Operation Restore Legacy.”
Since his appointment, Mnangagwa has promised to rebuild relations with the West, to protect foreign investors and to hold elections.
On 4 December, Mnangagwa appointed Shiri, the Air Force chief, to the post of minister of agriculture. Moyo, the general who had announced the military’s intervention, became foreign minister. “Mnangagwa has got the reins but he cannot operate outside the generals that put him in office,” said Martin Rupiya, a Zimbabwean professor at the University of South Africa in Pretoria and an expert on the Zimbabwe military. On 6 December, Foreign Minister Moyo publicly overruled Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, a civilian lawyer, as he outlined the financial terms of a Chinese loan for Harare airport.
“You should tell the reporters not to include the terms,” Moyo told Chinamasa, wagging his finger at him and the reporters gathered at the finance ministry for the announcement.
Ever since a guerrilla war against colonial Britain and white-minority rule in the 1960s and 1970s, Zimbabweans have been used to the army and intelligence services playing a covert role in politics. But to many Zimbabweans, the appointment of military men to the cabinet was a shock.