Unpacking Mnangagwa's legal coup against Chiwenga

When Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi stood before the ZANU PF Politburo on Tuesday to present a formal rebuttal to Vice President Constantino Chiwenga's allegations, he did not merely read a document. 

He delivered a declaration of political war disguised as a legal defence. 

The text, couched in the language of constitutionalism and party discipline, was in reality a carefully choreographed attempt by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to reassert control, criminalise dissent, and finally dismantle the uneasy military-civilian compact that has defined Zimbabwean politics since the coup of 2017.

This was not just a statement of defence; it was a manifesto of dominance. For the first time since assuming power, Mnangagwa has chosen to confront his deputy head on, abandoning the fiction of unity that has held ZANU PF together through a fragile coexistence of mutual suspicion. In doing so, he has signalled that the long-postponed reckoning between the civilian leadership and the military elite has arrived.

By assigning the justice minister and not a political aide to deliver the rebuttal, Mnangagwa elevated what was previously an internal quarrel into a formal institutional matter. Ziyambi's dual role as both cabinet minister and party Secretary for Legal Affairs provided the perfect vehicle through which to convert a political contest into a legal and ideological indictment. 

What began as an exchange of accusations within the presidium has thus been transformed into a matter of state legitimacy.

This tactic is as deliberate as it is effective. 

Mnangagwa understands that within ZANU PF, disputes resolved through the party's disciplinary mechanisms can be managed, contained, and erased from memory. 

But once framed as constitutional breaches, as treasonous, inciteful, or subversive, they assume a permanence that allows him to deploy the full coercive machinery of the state. In short, Ziyambi's rebuttal was a legal trap masquerading as an act of clarification.

At the heart of Mnangagwa's counteroffensive lies a profound act of political revisionism. 

Chiwenga's alleged letter sought to reclaim authorship of the 2017 coup, Operation Restore Legacy, as a military intervention that rescued both the nation and the party from the clutches of Robert Mugabe's dynastic ambitions. That narrative has always been Chiwenga's moral claim to power, that he was the midwife of the Second Republic, and therefore its rightful heir.

Ziyambi's rebuttal dismantles this claim with surgical precision. 

It reframes the coup not as a military rescue mission, but as a collective national effort encompassing the party, ordinary citizens, and patriotic business figures such as Kudakwashe Tagwirei. 

By distributing ownership of the event, the rebuttal dilutes the military's monopoly on legitimacy. 

The military becomes a participant, not the protagonist, in Zimbabwe's political rebirth.

This is a masterstroke of political narrative control. Mnangagwa is rewriting the central myth of his presidency, recasting himself not as a beneficiary of military benevolence, but as the chosen leader of a broad-based patriotic movement. 

In doing so, he shifts the moral centre of power away from the barracks and back to the State House. It is, in essence, a coup against the memory of a coup.

Perhaps the most striking feature of Ziyambi's document is its relentless invocation of criminal language. 

Chiwenga's conduct and claims are described as treasonous, inciteful, and reminiscent of the events of November 2017. 

The message is clear: criticism of Mnangagwa is no longer mere disloyalty, it is a threat to national security.

This shift from political to criminal vocabulary is not merely semantic. 

It signals that Mnangagwa intends to move the battlefield from the party's internal structures to the courts and security apparatus. 

By framing Chiwenga's alleged actions as subversive, the president is constructing a legal pretext for his neutralisation, whether through political isolation, judicial harassment, or eventual prosecution.

This is a tactic borrowed from Mnangagwa's long apprenticeship under Mugabe, the weaponisation of legality. Where Mugabe deployed revolutionary legitimacy to destroy rivals, Mnangagwa uses constitutionalism and the veneer of order. 

His genius lies in transforming repression into the language of rule of law.

Another revealing aspect of the rebuttal is its vigorous defence of the businessmen whom Chiwenga reportedly accused of corruption and undue influence, - Kudakwashe Tagwirei, Wicknell Chivhayo, Pedzisai “Scott” Sakupwanya, and Delish Nguwaya. 

These figures, long accused of profiteering from state contracts and proximity to power, are recast by Ziyambi as patriotic benefactors who sacrifice for the party and contribute to national development.

This rhetorical inversion serves a dual purpose. 

First, it sanitises Mnangagwa's inner circle of financiers, transforming accusations of corruption into acts of philanthropy. 

Second, it sends an unmistakable message: economic power is now inseparable from political loyalty. 

The businessmen are not parasites on the state; they are its indispensable partners.

In defending these oligarchs, Mnangagwa is not merely protecting allies, he is defining the new architecture of power. ZANU PF is no longer a liberation movement sustained by ideology and sacrifice; it is a corporate political complex held together by patronage and capital. 

Chiwenga's military faction, by contrast, appears increasingly obsolete, rooted in a moral economy of sacrifice that no longer pays dividends.

The rebuttal thus exposes a deeper ideological rupture within ZANU PF. 

Chiwenga's camp evokes the moralism of the liberation era, the purity of the gun, the sanctity of discipline, and the rhetoric of anti-corruption. Mnangagwa's faction, on the other hand, champions legality, continuity, and technocratic modernism. 

His repeated invocation of Vision 2030 situates his leadership within the language of progress, order, and institutional permanence.

The contradiction is stark. Chiwenga's appeal is to revolutionary authenticity; Mnangagwa's to bureaucratic legitimacy. 

The former seeks to moralise politics; the latter to legalise power. 

This ideological clash mirrors Zimbabwe's unresolved identity crisis, whether it remains a liberation state defined by struggle credentials or evolves into a post-liberation autocracy legitimised by law, development rhetoric, and elite capital.

By branding Chiwenga's arguments as destabilising, Mnangagwa is effectively portraying himself as the custodian of stability, the only man standing between the nation and renewed chaos. 

In this framing, loyalty to him becomes synonymous with patriotism, while dissent is redefined as subversion.

Nowhere are the implications clearer than in the question of succession. 

For years, Chiwenga was widely regarded as Mnangagwa's natural successor, a silent partner awaiting his turn. 

The rebuttal demolishes that assumption. 

By portraying Chiwenga's criticisms as acts of betrayal, Mnangagwa's camp has laid the groundwork to bar him from contention on moral and disciplinary grounds.

The reference in the document to the Chitepo School of Ideology, suggesting that even senior officials may require reorientation, is far from benign. It echoes the pre-2017 purges under Mugabe, where ideological training became a euphemism for political cleansing. In the coming months, we are likely to witness loyalty tests, public affirmations, and selective disciplinary measures designed to marginalise Chiwenga's allies and consolidate Mnangagwa's dominance ahead of the 2028 succession cycle.

What we are witnessing, therefore, is the institutionalisation of fear, the methodical conversion of political dissent into an offence against the party, the state, and the constitution. 

Mnangagwa is not merely consolidating power; he is codifying it.

The broader significance of this moment extends beyond the personal rivalry between the president and his deputy. It marks the formal end of the uneasy cohabitation between Zimbabwe's civilian politicians and its military elite, a partnership forged in the heat of the 2017 coup and sustained through pragmatic necessity. For seven years, Mnangagwa and Chiwenga maintained a delicate truce: the soldiers retained influence in the background, while the civilians managed the facade of governance.

That balance has now collapsed. Mnangagwa's rebuttal reclaims the party and the state for civilian control, underpinned by legalism and economic patronage rather than military loyalty. 

The generals have been politically disarmed, replaced by technocrats, lawyers, and businessmen. This may strengthen Mnangagwa's grip in the short term, but it also deprives ZANU PF of the unifying myth that once held it together.

In political terms, Mnangagwa has executed a strategic masterstroke. 

He has reframed a personal threat as a constitutional crisis, converted a rival's legitimacy into criminality, and redefined the party's economic lifeblood as patriotism. In doing so, he has ensured his immediate survival and tightened his control over both party and state.

Yet in moral and historical terms, this victory is pyrrhic. 

By criminalising internal dissent and sanctifying oligarchic capital, Mnangagwa has severed ZANU PF from its revolutionary ethos. 

The party that once claimed to embody the liberation struggle now functions as a legalistic autocracy, disciplined not by ideology but by fear.

Ziyambi's rebuttal will be remembered as more than a response to Chiwenga. 

It is the moment when the mask of unity slipped, revealing the raw mechanics of power beneath the rhetoric of patriotism. 

Mnangagwa may have silenced his deputy, but in doing so, he has confirmed what many Zimbabweans already suspected: that the Second Republic is not a new dawn, but a meticulously managed continuation of the old order, one where law serves power, and loyalty remains the only true constitution.