BBC News, Harare
Long convoy of armored tanks for staff breaking through the Harara neighborhood have caused concern – for a moment – that there was a military coup in Zimbabwe.
“What happens in Zimbabwe?” One person posted on social networks. The second said, “The last time that happened was a coup.”
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Still, chatting and speculation continued, revealing a lot about the state of the country.
On the eve of the routine military exercise, President Emmerson Mnangagwa, for the first time since he became president in 2017, faced sharp criticism for his leadership from his Zana-PF party with calls to deviate.
The allegations were challenged by the memories of the leadership of a coup that overthrew his predecessor, longtime leader of Robert Mugabe.
He came to power in 1980 as a revolutionary hero that ended the decade of the reign of white ministry. But his death was announced when the war veterans of the Independence of the 1970s withdrew support for him.
It was a war veteran and an older ZANA-PF member named Blessed Geza, also known as “Bombshell”, which launched a verbal offensive against Mnangagwa.
They polled when some within the party began to push to change the laws of the country to allow the president to seek a third term.
In a row of often explicit press conferences, lean voices called forehead, he has repeatedly invited the 82-year-old president to leave or face.
“I have to apologize for helping him to come to his duty,” Geza said at a press conference aired on social media about the president, who is nicknamed the “Crocodile”.
“As soon as it is [Mnangagwa] He had a taste of power, escalated corruption, forgot people, and remembered only his family, “said the open war veteran, who was then a member of the powerful Central Committee of ZANA-PF.
“Mnangagwa also handed over the state government to his wife and children. Unfortunately, we see how history is repeated. We cannot let that happen.”
Zana -pf was outraged by his “non -loyal” remarks – later described as “betrayal” – forcing Bombshell to hide from a place where, through his representatives, he continues to ridicule through social media, hint at protests.
Police are looking for him for four charges, including theft of vehicles, stimulating the powers of the president and encouraging public violence.
Blessed Mhlang, a journalist who first interviewed Bombshell in November, He was also arrested on charges of transmitting a message that encourages violence.
Problems started brewery through Mnangwe’s ambition to stay on duty during the ZANA-PF together last year. The president currently serves his second and last term, which expires in 2028.
The slogan “2030. The leader will continue to be pronounced his supporters, despite the Constitution of Zimbabwe, which limits the presidential conditions for two five -year mandates.
They claimed that they would have to stay in power to complete their development program “The Dance 2030” because he did such a great job.
The proposal was then adopted unanimously at the ZANA-PF conference in December, which did not explicitly spoke about the third term, but sought to extend the existing Mnangagwa term by 2030.
Despite Mnangagwa’s recent guarantee that he intended to deviate in three years, influential Roman Catholic bishops became involved.
In a pastoral letter last week, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference Zimbabwe warned that the debate in the 2030s is a distraction of things that are truly important – the closure of business, high unemployment, widespread corruption and economic policies that are favored by rich at the expense of ordinary Zimbab.
President’s spokesman George Charamba expressed disappointment over priests, saying that the state newspaper Herald was “dead and buried”.
Nevertheless, the Bombshell message seems to have landed. This resulted in the cleaning of the ZAN-PF, the expense of Geza and some of his allies.
Still, political analyst Takura Zhangazha says Geza’s outburst is unlikely that he won’t stimulate crowds to his belongings.
These days, people are less interested in such political glasses, he says, unlike at the time of the fall of Mugabe, when the Zimbabweys, including supporters of the opposition parties, appeared massively to support a national blow – thanking the army and war veterans.
“Even this attempt at Geza to talk about corruption and trouble of workers – people will not break, organize, mobilize. They no longer have this capacity or interest,” he tells the BBC.
“I can promise you that before 2028, it is not a repetition in 2017,” he said, adding that the Zimbabweys believe that they were used in the mugabe ejection and that they would no longer be performed on the streets for the Inner Battle of Zan-PF.
This is also because there are separations in the political landscape, including weak opposition.
Even war veterans do not represent the United Front, says Mr. Zhangazha.
Geza has previously expressed support in the discussion of the succession for Vice President Constantin Chiweng, a 68-year-old former army chief, but other war veterans are known back to the agenda in 2030.
Political analyst Alexander Rusero says it is important to understand the influential role of war veterans in Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF.
“They see themselves as guardians, so you can’t want their feelings,” he says.
However, he believes that current complaints that have been broadcast like Bombshell have encouraged more than self-interest than public interest.
“They feel like they are excluded from a cake they should otherwise enjoy,” he says.
Mr. Zhangazha agrees that those who show loyalty within the ruling party are likely to benefit from things like tenders, government contracts, approach housing, land and agricultural intakes such as fertilizer and seed.
For Jameson Timba, leader of the Fraction of the Main opposition party, a civic coalition for changes (CCC), everything summarizes the state of policy in Zimbabwe.
“You have a country where the economic situation is getting worse. People are hard to afford more than one meal a day,” he told the BBC.
“We have the main chains of supermarkets that are literally closing,” he said, referring to the economic troubles facing OK Zimbabwe, one of the largest traders in the country that was forced to close several large branches with empty shelves in others.
Mr. Zhangazha noted that the prognosis of fragile economy looks even more gloomy thanks to the relegation of the recent suspension of USAIDs.
Timba is still recovering from a five -month stay in prison, spending most of his prison sitting on a concrete floor, sharing a cell and a toilet with 80 people.
He was arrested in June, together with more than 70 others, for the maintenance of a “unlawful meeting” in his private residence when he held a barbecue to mark the International Day of the African Child.
His treatment – and those of his detainees – reflected that opposition politics criminalized, he told the BBC.
“The country is facing challenges. Any leader or government worth of his salt would actually invite the early elections, to check and determine if they still have the mandate of the people,” he said.
“Upright represents a joke basically [when] Talk about the extension of the mandate. “
However, there is a little chance of an early voice.
For now, the bomb remains in hiding, and the elections have been for years – but the discussion of succession will continue to cook.
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