Will Mnangagwa be better or worse?

The Star

By Peta Thornycroft

To many Zimbabweans, the answer to that question doesn’t really matter. They’re not looking for democracy, but economic relief, writes Peta Thornycroft.

Johannesburg – There are so many mysteries about Emmerson Mnangagwa. And much curiosity about him as he is the front runner to succeed Robert Mugabe – even though, of course, to survive the rocky road to the top job he must continue to deny he has any presidential ambition.

He must be part of the chorus which says that Mugabe, 91, will live forever, and that Zimbabwe’s “revolution” continues until final victory.

But the conversation that concentrates many minds in Zimbabwe more then Zanu- PF rituals is: Will Mnangagwa be better or worse than the “old man”?

Mugabe’s 35 years in power have transformed a relatively prosperous country into one that cannot borrow its way out of foreign debt or recapitalise infrastructure destroyed by neglect and policies which mean it doesn’t even have its own currency any more.

“I don’t care which party is in control. Which leader is driving. We don’t care any more about voting. The new person must come into office soon and fix the economy,” said a successful 42-year-old vegetable seedling trader who runs a slick operation outside a busy supermarket in Harare’s northern suburbs.

“I have never seen Mnangagwa, so I don’t know him: “What do you know of him? Is he okay?”

Mnangagwa remains elusive. Zimbabwe is not a country where ordinary people will express political opinions freely.

Researchers are not even sure of his age. He said in an interview in the government-controlled Harare weekly, The Sunday Mail, earlier this year that he is 71, soon to be 72. The voters roll says he is 72 and will be 73 mid-September; Wikipedia says he is 69.

His age has some relevance.

In the early part of the civil war to end minority white rule, Mnangagwa was found guilty of murder and blowing up a train and was rescued from the death sentence in 1965, because the judge believed he was a minor, when the age of majority was 21.

But he was, almost certainly, at least a year older than that.

Mnangagwa is not much remembered in the very few books Zimbabweans have written about the struggle and the war to end white rule.

We know that he did his O and A levels during nearly seven years in prison and then studied law in Zambia and completed articles in Lusaka for a revered Zimbabwe lawyer, Enoch Dumbutshena, who went on to become chief justice.

Mnangagwa was popular with some in the white intelligence community who remained in Zimbabwe at independence when he was first appointed security minister.

He went out of his way to find the policemen who tracked him down and nabbed him. He became friends with some of them and trusted them. Unusually, records of his arrest and trial are missing from the national archive.

Mnangagwa became Mugabe’s special assistant in Mozambique and, as an adult, has had no life outside Zanu-PF.

He was a natural successor to Mugabe for years. He ran the party’s now-failed business empire. So he was appalled and angry when junior party colleague Joice Mujuru was choreographed into one of the two vice-presidency positions in 2004, mainly because she was a woman.

So last year, ahead of the party congress, she was booted out, thanks to Mugabe’s wife Grace who went around the country holding rallies and told whoever would listen that Mujuru was planning a coup d’état.

It’s hard to find anyone who believes that. But it was useful to Mnangagwa and those who wanted to shaft her.

We know he helped change the Zanu-PF constitution to allow Mugabe to appoint him as vice-president last December, rather than stand for elections for the post.

We know little about his private life although we do know his second wife, Auxilia, was recently elected an MP, and that his first wife died some years ago. And we think he might have six adult children.

We know most Zimbabweans, even in his home area, did not know him well, or perhaps didn’t like him, as he was twice defeated in elections by opposition candidates in 2000 and 2005.

We know he was key to whatever it was that he and other Zanu-PF seniors and military leaders “earned” in the Democratic Republic of Congo after the late Laurent Kabila called for assistance from Mugabe’s well-trained army in 1998.

There are reports published around the world that say that he and others made a fortune out of DRC diamonds and money laundering at that time.

But we do know via public record that Mnangagwa played a key role in the DRC after the war and ensured that at least two prominent white Zimbabwean entrepreneurs briefly became rich cobalt and copper miners.

Businessmen operating in Katanga at that time have told several researchers and journalists that they saw regular payments were made from Zimbabweans operating there to a couple of top DRC leaders and senior Zanu-PF personalities during this period. Mnangagwa’s name circulates in these conversations.

If he made money then, and subsequently via his gold mining operations in Zimbabwe, he doesn’t show off his wealth.

He often drives himself around without security officials. He bought a farm after independence and took another from a white farmer post 2000 in central Zimbabwe. He owns a modest house in a not-so- fashionable Harare suburb.

“Pragmatist? Yes. He will be pragmatic,” said Eldred Masunungure, a senior political scientist from the University of Zimbabwe.

“We understand he is astute in his own business empire, and he would want his family business to expand. He would be more pragmatic then ideological.

“He does not have a flashy lifestyle. He is part of a close-knit political group averse to publicity who lead quiet lives so most people really do not know him.

“But the younger generation will find it difficult to be hopeful about him because the Zimbabwe they have known has always been in crisis. That is all they know.

“So the prevailing mood is of despair. It is palpable, one can almost touch it.”

Masunungure said Mnangagwa had “a difficult record and he needs to improve on that, so I imagine his advisers are working on his reputation”.

Masunungure reflects what many intellectuals will say about Mnangagwa – that he was a key player in the massacre of thousands of opposition supporters in the south and western parts of Zimbabwe post independence, and that he was the architect of violence against the Movement for Democratic Change since it emerged 15 years ago and very nearly defeated Zanu- PF in elections.

“We just hope the old man goes as soon as possible, because we are in such a very deep hole,” said a chartered accountant in Harare who asked not to be named.

Previous education minister and long-time human rights lawyer, David Coltart, who represented many victims of Zanu-PF violence in the 1980s, said this week: “The worst excesses of Zanu-PF have always happened when Mnangagwa has enjoyed Mugabe’s ear.”

He points to a speech Mnangagwa made in 1983 when he was security minister and which was reported in a government newspaper in second city Bulawayo during the heat of those massacres in the Matabeleland province:

“Blessed are they who will follow the path of the government laws for their days on Earth shall be increased. But woe unto those who will choose the path of collaboration with dissidents for we will certainly shorten their stay on Earth.”

But the chartered accountant and a mining executive say: “Yes, we know that. It was terrible. So we don’t expect democracy from Mnangagwa, but he will fix the economy, and that is all that counts these days. Democracy etcetera will come later.”

Mnangagwa did not respond to many calls made to his office via phone and e-mail seeking comment from him.