FORMER First Lady Grace Mugabe leads the pack of discredited politicians who make up the list of 2017’s noisemakers after an inglorious end to a short-lived, but eventful political career.
BY RICHARD CHIDZA
After plunging headlong into full-time politics in 2014, Grace turned into the most visible and recognisable politician in the country.
Her shrill and abrasive performance in 2017 left her husband jobless, but brought her within a whisker of power after arm-twisting former President Robert Mugabe into firing then Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa to trigger a chain of events that resulted in his resignation.
“Bring on the military . . . I am not afraid of death . . . Chiwenga is a coward . . . Mnangagwa is a womaniser . . . and Mnangagwa wajaira . . . Kasukuwere is not going anywhere . . . charges against Jonathan Moyo by Zacc [Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission] are cooked up . . . and Stop It!” are some of her notable rants that put her ahead of everyone.
She is joined by former Cabinet ministers Jonathan Moyo (Higher Education), Patrick Zhuwao (formerly Indigenisation and Social Welfare), former Local Government minister Saviour Kasukuwere, ex-Foreign Affairs minister Walter Mzembi, Mashonaland Central Provincial Affairs minister Martin Dinha, war veterans leader Christopher Mutsvangwa, while Zanu PF’s former youth league leader Kudzanai Chipanga and ex-Manicaland Provincial Affairs minister Mandiitawepi Chimene come in with a shout. Moyo, along with Grace, fought an intriguing battle as Zanu PF factions engaged in a bitter war of attrition for control of the ruling party.
The then Higher Education minister was at one point arrested by Zacc investigators on charges of fleecing the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund of over $400 000, but went to the Constitutional Court to challenge his arrest.
He described Mnangagwa as a “Gukurahundist or successionist”, launched attacks on former Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander General Constantino Chiwenga, whom he characterised as a “desperate politician in army uniform”.
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In June, Moyo literally threw the cat among the pigeons after throwing then Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi’s name into the succession matrix.
He argued Sekeramayi was better placed to succeed Mugabe.
“. . . Dr Sydney Sekeramayi, whose loyalty to President Mugabe, the party and country; whose liberation credentials, experience, consensus-style of leadership, stature, commitment to the nationalist project and humility, his humility, his humility . . . have no match,” Moyo waxed lyrical.
And now, Moyo continues to rant from self-imposed exile.
The former Cabinet minister even went further to suggest Mnangagwa’s counterpart, Phelekezela Mphoko, was more senior to the then Team Lacoste frontman.
As for Mphoko, it is difficult to find a category for him, but the fact that as VP, the whole world ignored him after the November 15 military intervention speaks volumes of how he was regarded.
His storming of a police station in Bulawayo to force the release of Zanu PF activists arrested following intra-party skirmishes in the city underlined the depths to which he could sink.
Just days after Mnangagwa’s sacking in November, Mphoko, while addressing Zanu PF supporters at a rally, claimed: “I am lonely . . . please Your Excellency (Mugabe) appoint someone to be my colleague Vice-President”.
Chimene opened the year in style by calling for then VP Mnangagwa’s arrest for “treason”.
According to Chimene, Mnangagwa needed at the time to make a police report to distance himself from former Zanu PF youth league provincial leaders led by Godfrey Tsenengamu, who had announced they would begin to campaign for the Midlands political godfather to challenge the President Robert Mugabe.
Tsenengamu went on to join a shadowy political outfit, but has since returned to Zanu PF as “the elected youth league national commissar” in the aftermath of the military intervention that forced Mugabe out of power and resulted in Mnangagwa’s rise in a dramatic twist to what has turned out to be the most eventful year in Zimbabwe’s history since majority rule 37 years ago.
Mutsvangwa, recently described by Mnangagwa as the “most controversial Zimbabwean I have known”, is an ultimate political rubble-rouser who does not hold back.
His catfights with Moyo and Zhuwao provided a year-long spectacle for the political weary Zimbabweans and that his preferred faction prevailed on the back of gun-totting soldiers only served to cement his position as one of the foremost stormtroopers of our generation.
Mutsvangwa, along with his acolytes in the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association, remained Mnangagwa’s last line of defence, as his political fortunes faced the nadir.
In the end, Mutsvangwa said of the military intervention “it was a counter coup to Grace’s bedroom coup”. Mugabe’s nephew, Zhuwao, burnt his fingers in a policy fight with Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa after the former threatened to close banks, claiming they had failed to meet a March deadline to comply with the 51% black ownership threshold. Mugabe was forced to intervene as an already desperate financial services sector went into tailspin.
Zhuwao apologised for failing to understand a policy over which he was supposed to superintend.
Zhuwao was not done yet. As the Zanu PF succession struggle rumbled on, he waded into the storm, describing Mnangagwa, then seen as Mugabe’s heir apparent, as a “charlatan” not worthy of succeeding his uncle.
When Mugabe was finally forced out of power, Zhuwao found himself stuck in exile, continued to throw pot-shots at Mnangagwa before his cries died down into a whimper and then an announcement he was quitting politics.
Chipanga will be remembered for his fawning more than anything.
He, at one point, described then Mnangagwa and Mphoko as “vana babamunini”, uncles, and declared Mugabe will go to heaven, where he will help God with selecting who enters the Pearly Gates.
Former Zanu PF youth league commissar Innocent Hamandishe makes up the tail, while disgraced former war veterans leader Patrick Nyaruwata’s bid for a comeback brings him into the picture, alongside self-styled Apostolic churches leader Johannes Ndanga.
