Mugabe faces challenge from Mnangagwa
Sacked vice-president says he will return to lead Zimbabwe, after fleeing in wake of removal
Robert Mugabe is facing his biggest political challenge in almost two decades as opposition to his authoritarian 37-year rule over Zimbabwe gains strength around the vicepresident he fired this week.
Mugabe sacked his long-time ally Emmerson Mnangagwa on Monday for showing “traits of disloyalty”, abruptly removing a favourite to succeed the 93-yearold leader and boosting the likelihood of Grace Mugabe, the first lady, becoming his next deputy and potential successor.
A close ally said on Wednesday that Mnangagwa had fled “assassins” for “a safe place” and would arrive in neighbouring South Africa later this week.
Mnangagwa, who fought alongside Mugabe in a guerrilla war and went on to become a feared security chief, said he had been “vilified beyond measure” and was being “hounded by minnows who have no liberation credentials. I will return to Zimbabwe to lead you,” Mnangagwa said in a statement.
Chris Mutsvangwa, the chair of Zimbabwe’s association of war veterans, told reporters in Johannesburg that Mnangagwa, 75, would lead a campaign to “restore democracy” in the former British colony. The war veterans — former combatants in the wars of the 1970s — have been a key support base for Mugabe.
Analysts said the threat to the president and those close to him was unprecedented because it came from within the ruling Zanu-PF party. “Mugabe has faced challenges from outside before, but never an internal challenge. This time it is the machinery that has kept him in power that is now shuddering,” said Piers Pigou, an analyst with the International Crisis Group in Johannesburg.
Tensions rising
Tensions were already rising in Zimbabwe amid a deteriorating economy and the vicious struggle around Mugabe’s succession. The sacking of Mnangagwa appears to have settled that contest in favour of the first lady, who is 52.
Grace Mugabe is far from a popular figure in Zimbabwe. Her image has suffered after an alleged assault on a model she had found in the company of her sons in a luxury apartment in Johannesburg in September.
Granted diplomatic immunity after the incident, Grace Mugabe was allowed to leave South Africa despite a police inquiry. She denies any wrongdoing.
Reports of extravagant purchases, including property in South Africa and a Rolls-Royce, have also angered many.
Mutsvangwa, the head of the war veterans group, said Grace Mugabe was “a mad woman” who had won power through a “coup ... by marriage certificate. She is a psychotic case ... now she has obliged her senile and doting husband to leave power to her. The whole nation is outraged,” he said.
Until recently, Mnangagwa was tipped as Mugabe’s likely successor, partly because of his support within the country’s security establishment and among veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s guerrilla war.
Despite his alleged involvement in atrocities in the 1980s, Mnangagwa was also the preferred candidate of much of the international community, where he was seen as most likely to guarantee a stable transition and implement economic reforms.