Charamba speaks on Chiwenga - Mnangagwa relationship

Presidential spokesperson George Charamba has opened up on the recent media reports that President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Vice President Constantino Guvheya Nyikadzino Chiwenga are in a fight for power. This assertion was further amplified by the announcement that Mnangagwa had cut short his leave to come and deal with the junior doctors who are on strike.

Speculations were fife on Wednesday that Mnangagwa was not happy withe military approach that Chiwenga was using to resolve the impasse.

We publish full statement of George Charamba below:

"Administratively and legally, there is a limit to powers which an Acting President can wield and in any event, the style has always been that the Acting President consults with the substantive President. Now in this particular case we have a serious situation in the health sector involving lives and naturally, the President has to demonstrate concern and that concern comes by way of cutting short his leave in order to work closely with the Acting President so that consultations are short circuited.

It's really for purposes of quick decision making given that there has to be constant consultation between the two. In fact, barely a day passes without telephone communication between the Acting President and the President. Now the President has come to deal with a situation in situ and that is meant to demonstrate seriousness of Government's approach to issues,

The President will resume his leave once the issue is resolved. The idle speculation being pushed in some sections of the media of a rift between President Mnangagwa and Vice President Chiwenga is false. It (coming of the President) is also meant to send a clear signal to the striking doctors that this is not a (VP) Chiwenga issue. It is an issue for the Presidency. They are at one on this one because the matter is a serious one. To show the gravity of the matter, the Joint Operations Command (JOC) met this week to discuss the health sector.

When you see levers of State security coming into the game then you know it is no longer child's play. Government is treating this matter as a serious one because it involves lives. Because it is serious, we are set to see extraordinary decisions being taken to put an end to this issue once and for all. We will not have any such development ever again in this country. We have had enough and the time has now come for us to take a very definitive position on the matter. We have a whole raft of measures that we are going to take and to the extent that some of the measures will have budgetary implications, it means the President has to be back. Yesterday (Tuesday), the Acting President briefed the President right into close to midnight. They were working and this is where most of the decisions were taken.

Opposition parties want to turn a labour issue political. I want to indicate clearly that this hanky-panky business must just come to an end.

They must get out of the issue between the doctors and Health Services Board. There is no place absolutely and they better be warned. We have human and constitutional rights which can be enjoyed by any and every citizen but all these rights are predicated on the right to life. The matter on hand relates to right to life and once we pit that against all other rights, the rest of the rights become second order rights. We will be releasing more information regarding sinister plots which were being done by opposition parties and their NGOs. These include minutes of the two meetings they recently held. We will be making those available to the public domain. That is why we are treating it as a state security issue.

We have three envoys who have come into the country from very friendly countries and the President wants to receive credentials from them"