The enigmatic Mnangagwa: now what?
HARARE: When Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe sacked his vice-president in front of 12 000 baying party members in 2014, Emmerson Mnangagwa sat quietly in the crowd, a green baseball cap pulled low over his eyes.
The man who stood to gain most from the dismissal betrayed nothing through his expression and gentle clapping – a survival tactic honed during five decades of service to the mercurial Mugabe. His cap, however, spoke volumes.
Emblazoned across its front, next to a portrait of Mugabe, were four words: “Indigenise, Empower, Develop, Employ” – a slogan of the ruling Zanu-PF party.
Speaking at the congress, to cheers from the roaring crowd, Mnangagwa said: “We will remain forever masters of our own destiny.”
With Mugabe, 93, held following yesterday’s military takeover in Harare, questions have arisen about what the future holds for Mnangagwa, whose sacking from the post of vice-president last week brought the political crisis to a head.
“There are no arguments around his credentials to provide strong leadership and stability, but there are questions over whether he can also be a democrat,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
The whereabouts of Mugabe’s wife Grace, 52, whose prospects of succeeding the president appeared to have been helped by Mnangagwa’s dismissal, are unknown.
With his appointment in 2014 as official deputy to Mugabe, Mnangagwa had appeared well set as the eventual successor to Africa’s oldest head of state.
The 75-year-old was one of Mugabe’s most trusted lieutenants, having been at his side in prison, during wartime and then in government.
Along the way, he earned the nickname Ngwena, Shona for crocodile, an animal famed in Zimbabwean lore for its stealth and ruthlessness. He has been speaker of Parliament and minister of finance.
Most controversially, he was in charge of internal security in the mid-1980s when Mugabe deployed a crack North Koreantrained brigade against rebels loyal to his rival Joshua Nkomo.
Rights groups say 20 000 civilians, mostly from the Ndebele tribe, were killed. Mugabe denies genocide or crimes against humanity but has admitted it was a “moment of madness”.
Mnangagwa’s role remains shrouded in mystery, typical of a political operator trained as a communist guerrilla in China in the 1960s and who always stayed in the shadows behind Mugabe.
Mnangagwa’s appointment as vice-president came a day after his predecessor Joice Mujuru was fired for allegedly planning to topple Mugabe. – Reuters