Chiwenga holding a gun without a bullet

Zimbabwean politics has long been framed through the blunt binary of power and force: the gun versus the vote, coercion versus consent. Yet the ongoing succession battle within Zanu PF suggests a more sobering and contemporary reality - that in today's Zimbabwe, money, not the gun, is the ultimate arbiter of political outcomes.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ruling faction appear convinced that they have decisively outmanoeuvred Vice-President Constantine Chiwenga, not through dramatic shows of force, but through a quieter, more effective weapon: resources. As one senior Zanu PF official close to Mnangagwa bluntly put it, Chiwenga is now "holding a gun without a bullet."

This assessment may sound provocative, even dismissive, but it captures an important shift in Zimbabwe's political economy. Power is no longer seized primarily through tanks on the streets or soldiers on television. It is accumulated, consolidated and defended through patronage networks, financial muscle, institutional capture and strategic patience.

From Mnangagwa's perspective, 2025 has been a successful political year. Despite sustained pressure from Chiwenga-aligned factions - including noisy public agitation fronted by figures such as war veterans' leader Blessed Geza - the President has remained firmly in control. His response was not impulsive. It was methodical.

Rather than confronting Chiwenga directly, Mnangagwa deployed loyalists - notably party spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa and a cluster of senior ministers - to fight the political battles in the open, while he worked quietly behind the scenes. This division of labour reflected a calculated strategy: absorb the attacks, allow opponents to overplay their hand, and gradually tighten control over the levers that matter.

The contrast between the two camps, according to insiders, is stark. On one side is a well-funded, well-organised faction backed by cash-rich businessmen, tenderpreneurs and cronies whose fortunes depend on the continuity of the current order. On the other is a restless, angry grouping animated by entitlement and nostalgia - and by the mistaken belief that historical ties to the military still guarantee political dominance.

This is where Chiwenga's camp appears to have misread the moment. Their rhetoric often leans on the mythology of liberation credentials and military authority, assuming that the gun still commands automatic obedience. But Zimbabwe has changed. The state has been restructured since 2017, the military has been recalibrated, and resources have been deliberately channelled to neutralise coup-making capacity. In this context, betting on force is less a show of strength than an admission of strategic bankruptcy.

Money, by contrast, has proven transformative. It has lubricated alliances, silenced potential dissenters, co-opted institutions and hollowed out opposition politics. The collapse of the opposition, particularly the Citizens Coalition for Change, is inseparable from this reality. Patronage, inducements and economic desperation have combined with repression to fragment resistance and drain it of moral authority. In this sense, Mnangagwa's internal triumph mirrors his external advantage: there is no credible countervailing force, either within Zanu PF or beyond it.

The regional and international environment has also worked in Mnangagwa's favour. Unlike his predecessor Robert Mugabe in his final years, Mnangagwa is not isolated. He faces no serious external pressure, and his government has become adept at managing international expectations while entrenching power at home. This relative diplomatic comfort further weakens any argument for dramatic, extra-constitutional intervention.

The lesson from this succession battle is uncomfortable but clear. Those who imagine that Zimbabwean power can still be seized through the barrel of a gun are fighting yesterday's war. In the current order, guns without money are symbols without substance. They may intimidate, but they do not endure.

Chiwenga's failure, if one accepts this analysis, was not a lack of ambition or anger, but a failure to understand how power now works. Instead of mobilising resources, building broad alliances and patiently organising, his camp relied on noise, threats and the illusion of military leverage. In politics, as in war, emotion is not a strategy.

Zimbabwe's tragedy is that this victory of money over the gun does not necessarily mean a victory for democracy, accountability or public good. It simply signals a shift in the mechanics of domination. Patronage has replaced overt coercion; capture has replaced confrontation. The gun has not disappeared - it has merely been subordinated to cash.

In that sense, Mnangagwa's triumph may be real, but it is also deeply revealing. It tells us less about the President's personal brilliance than about the nature of the system he now commands - a system where politics is decided not by ideas, popular legitimacy or even force, but by who controls the flows of money that keep the machinery running.