"Mugabe Supported Chamisa To Spite Mnangagwa"
The late former President Robert Mugabe reportedly decided to support the then MDC-Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa’s presidential bid in 2018 to spite his former deputy, President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
According to a document titled “Proposed Framework for the Reunification of ZANU PF”, authored by former Tourism minister Walter Mzembi and his G40 colleagues, after the 2017 military coup, Mugabe wanted to engage Mnangagwa but was shunned.
Speaking to NewsDay on Wednesday, Mzembi said that Mugabe wanted G40 members to be reinstated to the party and the Government and for their victimisation to end. Said Mzembi:
Read the document which I was authorised by Mugabe to take to Mnangagwa after protracted discussions and meetings between us.
This is how he envisaged reunification in the party: rapprochement and peace-building, and not this razz-mataz approach of fishing unsuspecting political juveniles on the back of granting them individual and family security.
This was not Mugabe’s approach; he was not selfish to the extent of wanting to cut a deal for himself back into ZANU PF to the exclusion of comrades who had sacrificed for him, standing with him on principle until the last.
Mnangagwa is said to have demanded that Mugabe endorses his candidature ahead of the 2018 elections.
In return, Mugabe wanted some decisions of the 19 November 2017 ZANU PF central committee meeting, which included his sacking from the party, to be re-visited.
Some of the G40 members who lost their positions after the military coup include former ministers Mandiitawepi Chimene (Manicaland provincial), Mugabe’s nephew Patrick Zhuwao (Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare), Sydney Sekeramai (Defence), who lost his job soon after the coup, Walter Chidakwa (Mines), Jonathan Moyo (Higher and Tertiary Education), Ignatius Chombo (Finance) and Samuel Undenge (Energy).
