Zimbabwe's men with guns versus men with money

The ZANU PF Politburo meeting scheduled for the afternoon of 9 October 2026 never took place. Members had already begun assembling at the party headquarters in Harare when the session was abruptly cancelled. Official explanations spoke of a clash of programmes.

The real collision was political.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Vice President Constantino Chiwenga were at loggerheads over proposals to rewrite the party constitution so that it matched the far-reaching changes introduced by the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3) Act, signed into law on 7 July 2026.

Most commentary has framed the confrontation as a classic succession fight between two men.

That reading is too narrow and ultimately misleading.

The deeper contest is over who will control the ruling party, the distribution of state appointments and the flow of public money after Mnangagwa eventually leaves office.

On one side stand the men with guns: the military and security figures whose intervention in November 2017 removed Robert Mugabe and installed the current president.

On the other stand the men with money: politically connected businessmen whose commercial interests, party financing and growing presence in formal political structures give them a direct stake in how the next leader is chosen.

The generals supplied the coercive power that delivered State House.

The tenderpreneurs, led most visibly by Kudakwashe Tagwirei, are accumulating the financial and institutional leverage that may decide who occupies it next.

The question now is whether the military establishment will retain its commanding position or become subordinate to a new class of commercially connected actors.

The 2017 Settlement and Its Unfinished Business

In November 2017 the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, under the command of then Defence Forces Commander Constantino Chiwenga, intervened to end the long rule of Robert Mugabe.

The operation, publicly presented as a targeted action against criminals surrounding the president, removed Mugabe from power within days.

Major-General Sibusiso Moyo became the public face of the intervention when he appeared on national television to explain the military's position.

Other senior commanders secured key installations, managed communications and ensured the transition proceeded without broader institutional collapse.

Mnangagwa, who had been dismissed as vice-president days earlier and had fled the country, returned from exile and assumed the presidency.

Chiwenga moved from the barracks into the vice-presidency. Military figures took senior positions in the new administration and retained substantial influence over security policy and political direction.

The 2017 settlement was not a democratic handover. It was a demonstration that the men with guns could determine the outcome of a national leadership crisis.

That demonstration created lasting expectations.

Those who had risked institutional legitimacy to remove Mugabe expected to retain a decisive voice in the succession that would eventually follow Mnangagwa.

The arrangement that emerged after 2017 rested on a clear understanding: the men who had supplied the coercive capacity would continue to shape the rules of political survival inside ZANU PF.

Nearly nine years later that understanding is under sustained pressure from a different source of power.

Businessmen who once operated in the shadow of state contracts are now moving into formal party and governmental positions.

Their rise forces a re-examination of who actually controls the instruments of succession.

The Ascent of the Men with Money

Kudakwashe Tagwirei has become the clearest illustration of this new force inside ZANU PF.