12/02/2025
Silent Ambitions, Loud Clashes: Zanu PF’s Toxic Succession Game
The hallowed grounds of Heroes Acre, a shrine to Zimbabwe’s liberation legacy, became a battleground on Monday as rival Zanu PF factions once again clashed over a far more profane pursuit, raw political power.
While hymns honouring the late war veteran Tinaye Chigudushould have echoed, the air instead roared with chants of “2030 ndeya Emmerson” and “Siyanai naye Mukanya” by factions supporting either President Mnangagwa or his deputy, Constantino Chiwenga.
This spectacle, crass even by Zanu PF’s standards, laid bare the party’s deepening succession crisis, a game of thrones played not with principle, but cunning, silence, and pawns.
Mnangagwa, constitutionally barred from seeking a third term after 2028, has not explicitly endorsed calls to extend his rule.
Yet, his allies have aggressively mobilised provincial structures to demand precisely that.
The “2030” slogan, now weaponised at party events, is no grassroots cry,it is a calculated nudge toward legitimising an unconstitutional power grab.
Mnangagwa’s silence is strategic. He lets others campaign for his longevity while maintaining deniability, a tactic reminiscent of his predecessor, Robert Mugabe.
Chiwenga, meanwhile, feigns indifference. He has not declared presidential ambitions, but his supporters’ chants of “Siyanainaye Mukanya” his totem signal an unmistakable challenge.
His recent veiled attacks on Mnangagwa’s associates, like labelling businessman Wicknell Chivayo a “reveal a simmering rivalry.
Chiwenga’s restraint is not modesty, it is cold pragmatism.
Openly coveting the presidency risks alienating Mnangagwa’sloyalists prematurely.
Instead, he quietly consolidates influence within security sectors and state apparatus, waiting to pounce when the moment ripens.
Caught in this matrix are Zanu PF supporters, reduced to foot soldiers in a war they did not choose.
The Heroes Acre skirmish was no spontaneous outburst, it was theatre orchestrated by factions testing their strength.
Mnangagwa’s camp, desperate to cement his legacy, and Chiwenga’s allies, hungry for ascendance to power, both exploit grassroots loyalty to liberation era symbolism.
Which brings an important national question, is the power struggle between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have to do with ideology or public service.
Or is it about personal ambition, cloaked in liberation rhetoric.
Zanu PF’s factionalism is not new.
The party’s history is a chronicle of betrayal, Mugabe ousted by Mnangagwa and Chiwenga in 2017 in a military assisted coup who then turned on each other.
What’s alarming is the brazenness with which this power feud now destabilises governance.
As Mnangagwa and Chiwenga jostle, policy-making stalls, corruption thrives, and Zimbabwe’s economic crisis festers.
The “New Dispensation” once promised accountability instead, it offers a recycled script of political survivalism.
True honour lies in respecting constitutional limits and prioritising national stability over personal ambition.
Mnangagwa, having benefited from term limit protests in 2017, now risks hypocrisy by entertaining extensions.
To resolve Zanu PF’s toxic succession feud and avert further national destabilisation, the party’s political elites must prioritiseinstitutional integrity over personal ambition.
First, the party must return to its own principles, democratic renewal.
A transparent, inclusive leadership transition process guided by the constitution and free from backroom machinations, should be codified.
Mnangagwa, having weaponised term limits to unseat Mugabe, must not hypocritically subvert the same rules.
He should publicly renounce any extension beyond 2028 and commit to a peaceful transfer of power, setting a precedent for future leaders.
For Chiwenga, restraint must evolve into statesmanship.
Ultimately, Zimbabwe’s survival hinges on divorcing political power from liberation-era entitlement.
