The Mnangagwa Era? Periodisation and Politics in Zimbabwe

The Mnangagwa Era? Periodisation and Politics in Zimbabwe

Has Zimbabwe entered a new political era? This provocation gets at some of the fundamentals of politics: what are the constraints and possibilities in governing a country? What are people’s shared imaginings of the political community that they belong to? How do these fields relate and change? These...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of southern African studies 2019-09, Vol.45 (5), p.981-992
Main Author: Hodgkinson, Dan
Format: Article
Language:eng
Subjects:
Chiwenga, Constantino
Corruption
Corruption in government
Coups d'etat
Mismanagement
Mnangagwa, Emmerson Dambudzo
Mugabe, Robert
Nationalist movements
Oppression
Phonetic form
Political parties
Political persecution
Politics
Provocation
Values
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Summary:Has Zimbabwe entered a new political era? This provocation gets at some of the fundamentals of politics: what are the constraints and possibilities in governing a country? What are people’s shared imaginings of the political community that they belong to? How do these fields relate and change? These questions are not just academic but have been at the centre of Zimbabwean politics since Robert Mugabe was removed from office by a military coup on 19 November 2017. The coup was a decisive move by Emmerson Mnangagwa and Constantino Chiwenga to gain control of the ruling party, the Zimbabwe African National Union (Patriotic Front) (ZANU[PF]), by removing their factional rivals – a group known as G40, which was led by Saviour Kasukwere, Jonathon Moyo, Patrick Zhuwao and Grace Mugabe. Since the coup, Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have insisted that the events of that November signalled a moment of change. ‘Operation Restore Legacy’ – the name given to the coup by its leaders – was, the state newspaper reported, ‘launched to rescue the values and the ethos of the liberation struggle threatened by political upstarts and counter-revolutionaries’. By portraying the November event as the start of a new era, the coup leaders sought both to distinguish themselves from ZANU(PF)’s record of repression, corruption and economic mismanagement and to fire people’s imaginations for what Zimbabwe could be without Mugabe at the helm.
ISSN:0305-7070
1465-3893