HARARE – Zanu PF spokesman Chris Mutsvangwa on Monday swatted questions about President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rumoured plan to extend his term past 2028, but insisted the 81-year-old would finish his second and final five-year term.
Zanu PF was forced to dismiss a fake statement attributed to the party’s director of information which said Mnangagwa would “leave office on or before the 2028 elections, and not any day longer.”
Farai Marapira said the statement circulated online was part of “malicious and fallacious attempts to misinform the public.”
The statement had denounced a slogan repeatedly used by Mnangagwa loyalist and provincial minister for Midlands Owen Ncube, proclaiming that Mnangagwa “will be there in 2030.”
At a news conference to announce a mini-reshuffle in the Zanu PF politburo, which saw political commissar Mike Bimha stripped of his portfolio post, Mutsvangwa insisted that Zanu PF was not engaged with the question of Mnangagwa staying on “right now.”
“If the president wants anything he brings it to the party, his politburo, his central committee and eventually his congress.
“That’s what the president does. We have not discussed that issue at that level; so we have no reason to fan flames that are not on the agenda of the party at the present time,” Mutsvangwa said.
The Zanu PF spokesman however bristled at suggestions that Mnangagwa could be replaced before 2028, likely by his ambitious deputy Constantino Chiwenga, the general who led the 2017 coup that catapulted him to power.
Inside sources in Zanu PF say Chiwenga and his allies in the military are growingly concerned by “criminal activities” by Mnangagwa allies and members of his family, which they fear might influence him to seek an extension of his rule to escape accountability.
The sources used an analogy of a man who messes his pants while sitting down, and refuses to stand up for fear of being exposed.
They say the longer Mnangagwa goes into his term, the greater the chance he may be tempted to cling on.
Mutsvangwa, known to despise Chiwenga while nursing his own ambitions of being president, appeared to shut the door to the possibility of Mnangagwa not finishing his term.
“The president just won an election last year in August for a five-year term, the next election is in 2028. Right now he’s occupied with fulfilling the mandate of the past election, which he’s doing excellently.
“These are the issues that are occupying the president, not to compress these four years, five years, into a succession issue right now. Succession is not the primary issue of why he was elected,” he told journalists at the party’s headquarters.
Zimbabwe’s constitution limits presidents to two five-year terms, but some in Zanu PF are publicly urging Mnangagwa to amend the constitution through a referendum – either to extend the life of his government by two years to 2030, or scrap term limits. External and internal opposition could put paid to the plan, but Mnangagwa’s supporters appear determined.
Meanwhile, Mnangagwa has removed the party’s political commissar Bimha and replaced him with Munyaradzi Machacha, the principal of the party’s Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology.
Bimha will remain an ordinary member of the top organ.
Mnangagwa also made Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda the party’s new treasurer, swapping him with Patrick Chinamasa who becomes the legal secretary.
