Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa may be positioning a tycoon, who has been sanctioned by the United States and United Kingdom for alleged corruption, to succeed him, sidelining his deputy Constantino Chiwenga, who propelled him to power in a coup eight years ago.
President Mnangagwa, whose second and final term in office ends in 2028, has been coy about his succession, while his loyalists have publicly called for his term to be extended by two years.
In public, the 82-year ruler continues to insist that he will step down when his term ends, while a thinly veiled campaign to line his wealthy business associate Kudakwashe Tagwirei for the presidency is gathering pace.
Tagwirei was recently catapulted into the ruling Zanu PF party’s central committee prompting a backlash from a military-linked faction who claim he is being groomed to replace Chiwenga.
Chiwenga was the commander of the Zimbabwean army in 2017 when it removed longtime ruler Robert Mugabe and replaced him with President Mnangagwa, who was in exile in South Africa at the time.
The two former allies have been feuding over the President’s alleged ties to a coterie of businessmen who are growing super rich from government tenders.
Locally, the businessmen are known as tenderpreneurs, a derogatory term used to describe often politically connected individuals who exploit their influence to by-pass competition and secure public tenders for personal enrichment.
Typically, their projects are characterised by overpricing and substandard work.
Last year, the US said, “President Mnangagwa has benefited from the corrupt network of Zimbabwean businessman Kudakwashe Tagwirei, who was designated for having materially assisted, sponsored or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of the government of Zimbabwe to gain access to resources and exerts significant control over major sectors of Zimbabwe’s economy.”Read: US sanctions Zimbabwe’s MnangagwaThe US Treasury said the businessman had utilised his relationships with senior Zimbabwean officials to gain State contracts and receive preferential access to hard currency.‘Erupting like a volcano’Tagwirei regularly donates millions of dollars to Zanu PF for election campaigns and bought expensive cars for the ruling party’s senior leadership.“Since former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe’s 2017 departure, Tagwirei used a combination of opaque business dealings and his ongoing relationship with President Mnangagwa to grow his business empire dramatically and rake in millions of US dollars,” the US Treasury said in its designation of the tycoon under the Global Magnitsky sanctions programme.
Patrick Chinamasa, the Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs, said that Tagwirei had previously been an inactive member of the ruling party, but is now “erupting like a volcano” following his elevation to the central committee this week.“He was a dormant but committed Zanu PF cadre, loyally working quietly and outside the public limelight or glare, holding some low-ranking position in some Zanu PF district under Zanu PF province,” Chinamasa said.“His recent co-option into the Zanu PF central committee is a breath of fresh air and will certainly be impactful to Zanu PF’s political fortunes in Harare and perhaps in other urban settings as well.”Tagwirei’s critics in Zanu PF say he is an outsider who lacks the liberation war credentials that are usually considered the basic qualification for leadership in the ruling party.
If he manages to rise to the helm of the ruling party, he will become the first leader with no connection to Zimbabwe’s 1970s liberation war or the military.
President Mnangagwa is said to have quietly encouraged the businessman to go out and win the support of the Zanu PF branches ahead of the party’s elective congress that will elect the next leader in 2027 on the eve of the next presidential elections.
Insiders say the President fears that Chiwenga would be retributive if he is allowed to take over and believes Tagwirei is the best candidate to protect his family’s vast wealth.‘Phantom entrepreneurship’The businessman’s growing confidence in his ability to take over President Mnangagwa has already unsettled some Zanu PF heavyweights, including presidential hopefuls such as the party spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa, who warned that the party will “winnow out businessman entrants with hidden agendas.”Chiwenga, who has long been touted as the President’s obvious successor because of his seniority in the party and the leading role he played in the coup, has become increasingly vocal about the circle of rich business people surrounding the President. He has repeatedly questioned the source of their wealth and vowed to take action against them.
The VP told a major business conference this week that the days of people flaunting unexplained wealth were numbered.“This culture of phantom entrepreneurship, where money appears without any known source, is not only corrosive but ethically bankrupt,” Chiwenga said in remarks seen as pointed to President Mnangagwa’s allies.“Real businesses are built through hard work, discipline, sacrifice and value creation,” he added.“The day of reckoning is inevitable for those who undermine our economic integrity by engaging in shadowy dealings.”‘Foolish Zimbabweans’For his part, Tagwirei hit back at his critics, describing Zimbabweans who are not tenderpreneurs as foolish.“If you are not a tenderpreneur, you are foolish,” he said. “The biggest buyer or seller in this country is the government, so if you don’t want to get your tender from the biggest buyer and biggest seller, where are you going to get your business from?”“Anyone who tells you that you must not get tenders is foolish, you must actually strive to get a tender from the government.”He claimed that the term tenderpreneur was “coined by white people to discourage blacks from gaining access to business from the government.”Jealousy Mawarire, a Harare-based political analyst, said the biggest threat to President Mnagagwa’s succession plan was the military as it will have a big say on who becomes Zimbabwe’s next leader.“Tagwirei has moved from the shadows into an unstrategic position to foist himself into the Zanu PF succession matrix, naively believing that money buys the Zanu PF presidency,” Mawarire said.“If it works for him, it will be one of those rare miracles akin to walking on water. If Tagwirei succeeds in outwitting the military, he will become the only presidential aspirant in Zanu PF to do so since 1977.“In fact, it is easier for the army to remove (President) Mnangagwa and replace him with Chiwenga than for Tagwirei to rise through Zanu PF ranks to become the party’s first secretary.”Tagwirei denied that he harbours presidential ambitions, claiming that he is behind the campaign to have the President remain in power until 2030.“I am a businessman and why would I be looking for something that doesn’t exist? It’s foolish for me to look for something that doesn’t exist,” he said. “Why waste my energy when there is no vacancy.“I am a soldier, a soldier who has been sent by the very President who is going to be there until 2030 and anyone who thinks there is a vacancy should go and sleep and wake up again because they are dreaming.”Read: Zimbabwe Catholic bishops oppose Mnangagwa term extensionFor President Mnangagwa to extend his term by two years, the country’s Constitution must be amended to remove presidential term limits.
Constitutional amendments, however, must be approved by two different referendums and should not benefit the incumbent. Provided by SyndiGate Media Inc. (
Syndigate.info
).
