HARARE – A group of war veterans on Sunday demanded that President Emmerson Mnangagwa must leave office “peacefully or otherwise” while describing him as “not fit to run this country.”

Led by Zanu PF central committee member Blessed Runesu Geza, the liberation fighters convened a news conference in Harare where they launched an extraordinary attack on Mnangagwa’s regime, triggering speculation that they were stalking horses for the military faction in the ruling party.

Flanked by five other men he introduced as commanders from both ZPRA and ZANLA “who fought in the trenches to liberate this country,” Geza said: “It is clear to us that Mnangagwa has failed, he is not fit to run this country and his time to go is now!

“We ask him to go peacefully. If he refuses to take heed of this advice, we have no option but to ask the people of Zimbabwe to deal with a rogue president in line with the constitution.”

War veteran Knox Chivero, who spoke after Geza, went further as he declared that “it is his time to leave peacefully or otherwise.”

Mnangagwa is currently on his annual leave and his ambitious deputy Constantino Chiwenga, tipped to succeed him when his second and final term ends in 2028, is acting president.

The press conference could spook Mnangagwa, whose supporters have launched a campaign to amend the constitution to remove term limits. The war veterans vowed to oppose any tinkering with the constitution. They poo-pooed Mnangagwa’s public claims that he has no ambition to stay in power beyond 2028.

Geza warned that the plan would “throw the country into disquiet.”

He added: “How do you claim not to be involved when your ministers appointed under your hand issue statements in support of this illegal and treacherous 2030 agenda?”

The war veterans, in language similar to that used by Chiwenga, then commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces days before a military coup ousted Robert Mugabe in 2017, claimed Mnangagwa had “embraced thieves, conmen and heartless killers in his government.”

“Emmerson Mnangagwa on assumption of power showed that he was a man who had learned nothing… instead of correcting the mistakes of Robert Mugabe, he went about proving to all of us that Mugabe was actually a saint,” Geza charged.

Mnangagwa had “systematically targeted and purged war veterans in various arms of government and replaced them with crooks.”

The president’s cabinet was stuffed with ministers “who either belong to his clan or are benefactors to his family through his childen,” Geza fumed.

He added: “Since assuming power, Mnangagwa has neglected civil servants who are now earning slave wages. Our men and women in uniform have lost their dignity even in the eyes of the public due to state sponsored poverty.”

Geza claimed that the rising frequency of deaths of ex-generals were suspicious, adding further that they believe the deaths are “linked to Mnangagwa’s blue-eyed boy Owen Mudha Ncube,” the former state security minister.

Exiled former Zanu PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere, reacting to the press conference, tweeted: “Mgagao Declaration 3.”

The Mgagao Declaration was a communique written by young military officers at the main ZANLA training camp in Tanzania at the height of the liberation struggle in November 1975. It laid the foundation for the removal of Ndabaningi Sithole as leader of ZANU and the elevation of Robert Mugabe at a special congress at Chimoio two years later in 1977.

If Mugabe’s removal was Mgagao Declaration 2, Kasukuwere was intimating that a third leadership change in Zanu PF is imminent.

A political analyst said Geza and his group had been “sent.”

“The forces behind them are either powerful or reckless or desperate. Time will tell sooner rather than later as to which is which,” he said.