Mnangagwa Fires Warning Shot at Chiwenga

Story By Staff Reporter

As growing political tensions between the two heavyweights reach fever pitch, President Emmerson Mnangagwa took a swipe at Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga at today’s politburo meeting for boycotting Saturday’s presidential fundraising dinner ball at the Hippodrome, Braeside, Harare.

The event was critical for the ruling party annual conference which started today.

Chiwenga was the only one in the Zanu PF Top Six or presidium – comprising the President, two Vice-Presidents, Chairperson and Secretary-General – who did not attend the fund-raising event.

Chiwenga also did not attend the funeral of the late businessman Wicknell Chivayo – Mnangagwa’s close friend, political ally and ruling party funder – last week and billionaire Kudakwashe Tagwirei’s swearing-in ceremony at State House yesterday.

Although Chivayo and Tagwirei have previously worked with Chiwenga and given him their cars and money, they have had a bitter fallout over Mnangagwa’s succession.

Fed up by the boycotts fuelled by the ongoing Zanu PF succession battle, Mnangagwa today fired warning shots across Chiwenga’s bows, saying of “some of you came, but some of did not come, but you are members of the politburo… you hear me”.

He was referring to the weekend presidential fundraising dinner hosted by the party’s conference fund-raising sub-committee chaired by Philip Chiyangwa.

Mnangagwa and Chiwenga’s bruising succession infighting is intensifying amid the ongoing conference and a raft of proposed constitutional amendments to align the Zanu PF constitution with the national charter, while entrenching the incumbent in power and sidelining his rival.

Chiwenga was instrumental in Mnangagwa coming to power through a coup in November 2017 which ousted the late former president Robert Mugabe, and expected to be the automatic successor, something that now looks increasingly uncertain.

Reporting based on original coverage by NewsHawks.