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Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa

Possibly Zimbabwe has traded geriatric dictator in favor of an an elderly dictator. Both Robert Mugabe and his successor Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa were schooled by the harsh lessons of the struggle against the white Rhodesian government. Both were imprisoned, and both were tortured. Both learned first hand the nature of harsh methods and the purposes to which they might be put.

Mnangagwa is a politician and a former member of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). Mnangagwa is nicknamed "Ngwena," or "The Crocodile". His feared reputation as an "enforcer" would serve to hold the ruling ZANU-PF party together and defeat the opposition Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] using any means necessary. If he became president, Mnangagwa could turn out to be just as dictatorial as Mugabe, and even more ruthless than Mugabe. Mnangagwa was Minister of State Security during the Gukurahundi genocide (1982-1982), has a reputation for ruthlessness. In this racially inspired genocide of the 1980s, the regime murdered an estimated 20,000 Ndebele people.

Vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, the man long expected to succeed Mugabe, was sacked on 06 November 2017. The removal of Mnangagwa, who fled the country but vowed to return as leader, was thought to be part of a plan to replace the 93-year-old Mugabe with his wife Grace.

Since the expulsion of former Vice President Joice Mujuru from Zanu PF in 2014, Mnangagwa had become the hot favorite to succeed President Mugabe and it seems he intends to take advantage of it by becoming the next president. Mnangagwa was Vice President of Zimbabwe, before being dismissed as the country's Vice President in November 2017. He had been removed from his post as Minister of Justice and replaced by Happyton Bonyongwe a month earlier. A few days after his dismissal as vice president, Mnangagwa, was expelled from Zanu-PF Party. He also served as Minister of State Security and the Minister of Defense from 2009 to 2013. He was previously the Speaker of Parliament of Zimbabwe from 2000 to 2005.

Mnangagwa says he was born in 1942 (not 1946 as is often reported). Mnangagwa's family raised him in the Mnangagwa Village of Zvishavane. He studied at the Kafue Trade School and then at Hodgson Technical College. Mugabe's connection to the Mnangagwa family pre-dates the liberation war years. It was at the burial of his younger sister, Bridget Mugabe, when Mugabe narrated how as a twenty-year old he was deployed to teach at a school in Mapanzure in rural Zvishavane. This happens to be Mnangagwa’s home area. There, the young Robert met an uncle to Mnangagwa, who, upon seeing the young man, took pity upon him and offered to accommodate him in his home.

In 1963, soon after modern Zimbabwe's ruling party ZANU-PF was formed, Mnangagwa was part of the first group of young party leaders sent to China for military training. Upon his return, he earned his nickname by leading a group of fighters called the Crocodile Gang during the country's war of independence against Rhodesia's white-minority rule. Mnangagwa's gang blew up several trains. He was arrested in 1965 and sentenced to death. He escaped that fate because his lawyers successfully argued that he was under 21 and hence underage for the hangman's noose.

Mugabe and a young Mnangagwa met in prison where both were detained by the colonial regime. One unverified version says the two shared a cell and that the younger man benefitted from the tutelage of his elder, while he provided some assistance. Conditions of confinement are tough, but they can also help groom durable and long-lasting relationships between inmates.

Mnangagwa’s role as Mugabe’s most trusted lieutenant formally began in 1977, when he becomes Special Assistant to the newly-installed Zanu President at a special congress. This earned him a seat on the Dare reChimurenga (War Council) the special committee that directed the war effort.

Mugabe got the individual glory, but Mnangagwa was the man behind him - the quiet, loyal, obedient and hard-working grafter of the team. For more 40 years he has put in a shift for Team Mugabe, doing much of the less enviable tasks, and getting blamed for it, sometimes on his own account, other times on behalf of his boss. This capacity to take the bullet on behalf of the principal is a rare quality in politics.

After the struggle, he was appointed Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office. In charge of state security in Mugabe’s first cabinet in 1980, he controlled state security – an area he dominated. The Home Affairs Ministry, which Mugabe had given to his old rival Joshua Nkomo in the first government, was stripped of some core functions, such as the police, which was transferred to Mnangagwa’s command. In addition to inheriting a formidable array of repressive laws from the previous regime, Zimbabwe also inherited an army and CIO [Central Intelligence Organization] which retained some men well versed in the techniques of torture. Emmersen Mnangagwa, the Zimbabwean Minister responsible for the CIO in the 1980s, would point out to his visitors the old CIO members who had personally tortured him when the whites held power. Mnangagwa maintained that he had no option but to retain the old CIO agents, as ZANLA did not have a well developed intelligence unit to replace it, and the "old CIO guard" had key information in certain areas.

Mugabe changed the constitution and became president in 1987. From 1988 to 2000, Mnangagwa served as minister of justice, legal and paramilitary affairs, leader of the House and in several other positions for short terms.

Mugabe's newly appointed ruling party Politburo, announced 15 December 2000 at the ZANU-PF special congress, appeared to favor the ascendancy of Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa, who directed intelligence (CIO - Central Intelligence Organization) and presided over the Matabe 1980s, was on the brink of political oblivion earlier in the year after he lost his Kwekwe seat in the June 2000 parliamentary elections to the obscure Blessing Chebondo of the MDC. Mugabe rescued him by ensuring he was elected speaker of parliament in August.

Mnangagwa's position was further strengthened with his appointment to the number four position in the party as secretary for administration (only president mugabe and the two vice-presidents hold higher positions). Mnangagwa replaced Didymus Mutasa, who was caninely loyal to Mnangagwa and whose own presidential aspirations now had been sidelined. From this platform, Mnangagwa would be able to exercise considerable control over ZANU-PF's structures and the people who fill them.

The Ndebele and Manica -- whose home provinces were dominated by the MDCc -- were associated with the opposition, and ZANU-PF members from those areas are more often suspected of harboring sympathies for the opposition. As a result, the Ndebele or Manica no longer retained independent power bases in ZANU-PF, and the new politburo reflected that. None of the new politburo department heads hailed from Matabeleland or Manicaland.

In November 2001, Justice David Bartlett, now retired from the Bench, ruled that Mnangagwa, the Speaker of Parliament and the Zanu PF secretary for administration, unlawfully released George Tanyanyiwa Chikanga in March 2000.

In 2005 Mnangagwa seemed to have lost favor and had seemingly been demoted to the very modest office of rural affairs minister. Mnangagwa is also a key member of Joint Operations Command (JOC). Partnership Africa Canada report, “Diamonds and Clubs” (June 2010), describes the members of JOC as “the high priests of Zimbabwean politics, the final arbiters of tough decisions, and the architects of every single government-sponsored act of repression from the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland, to the farm invasions, to successive episodes of election-related violence.

In 2008, he was credited with masterminding Mugabe's presidential campaign. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round of the election. Hundreds of opposition supporters were killed in a campaign of violence blamed on the military and state security organizations. Tsvangirai pulled out of the second round of elections. Mugabe was re-elected, and Mnangagwa became defense minister. After Mugabe won another presidential term in 2013, Mnangagwa was appointed vice president.

Mnangagwa has close ties with Beijing and is reported to receive financial and political backing. China has reportedly set aside a US$1 billion loan facility for Zimbabwe’s economic resuscitation under a Mnangagwa presidency, should it materialise. At the invitation of the Communist Party of China, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa visited China from July 6 to 10, 2015. During the visit, Yu Zhengsheng, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference,Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao, Wang Jiarui, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conferenceand Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee, Xu Shaoshi, Chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission of China,and Xu Lyuping, Vice Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committeeheld meetings or talks with VP Mnangagwa.

Mnangagwa said it is time for Africa, with its rich resources, to economically "stand on its feet," a process in which China can provide assistance to all African countries. In an interview with Chinese media before his visit to China, Mnangagwa said Africa's economic structure was that each and every one traded with its former colonial master, exporting raw materials from its resources and trade among African states was limited, a structure that was blamed for the continent's slow pace of development.

Mnangagwa’s ongoing threats, made in public and reported in the media, are of great concern. For example, during February 2015, while threatening two multi-million dollar investors in the country, he reminded them that he “was trained to kill”, a statement likely to frighten away investors. At the commissioning of a water treatment plant in Masvingo during April 2015, Mnangagwa said if he was God, he would deprive MDC supporters of oxygen so that they would all die because they were anti-revolutionary.