Gen Mujuru Opposed ED's Bid To Presidency - Obert Mpofu

3 years agoThu, 08 Oct 2020 16:56:53 GMT

Gen Mujuru Opposed ED's Bid To Presidency - Obert Mpofu

Miles Tendi, a Zimbabwean writer and African Politics lecturer has said that ZANU PF secretary for administration, Obert Mpofu wrote in his “On The Shoulders of Struggle: Memoirs of a Political Insider” that the late former army boss, Solomon Mujuru was against the ascension of President Emmerson Mnangagwa to power. Mujuru was the husband of the former Vice President Joyce Mujuru. He died in a “mysterious” fire at his farm. We present Tendi’s full Twitter thread below.

@DrObertMpofu, in his “On The Shoulders of Struggle: Memoirs of a Political Insider”, observes that General Solomon Mujuru was “unyielding in his commitment to ensuring that Mnangagwa never ascends to the presidency of ZANU PF and Government”.

@DrObertMpofu observation fits my Mujuru biography’s account of the General’s stance towards the prospect of a Mnangagwa presidency. As I write about, Mujuru remarked: “Mnangagwa will become president of Zimbabwe over my dead body”.

But I disagree with @DrObertMpofu that ED came to power via the “will of the people”. Mnangagwa came to power via the will of the gun. Operation Restore Legacy was a coup that shared comparable justifications & operational attributes with military coups in Africa since 1956.

@DrObertMpofu shies away from stating why Solomon Mujuru was determined to prevent an Emmerson Mnangagwa presidency. Mujuru had four reasons for opposing Mnangagwa’s bid to become president of Zimbabwe. Here goes….

(i) Mnangagwa never saw active combat as a ZANLA guerrilla & his role in larger nationalist politics was marginal. For Solomon Mujuru, Mnangagwa’s meagre liberation struggle credentials disqualified him from seeking to determine the direction of ZANU’s succession politics.

(ii) One of the things Solomon Mujuru criticised Mugabe for was his hard heartedness, which he felt had been bad for Zimbabwe. Mujuru saw comparable hard heartedness in Mnangagwa and was of the view that Zimbabwe needed a break from a cycle of callous political leadership.

(iii) Solomon Mujuru and Emmerson Mnangagwa clashed over some business interests in the 1990s, most famously in the ZIMASCO affair. These differences over business resulted in very bad blood between them. @DrObertMpofu

(iv) Mujuru had an injudicious belief the highly educated & bright make the best leaders. This conviction partly explains his misguided support for Mugabe in the 1970s. Mujuru believed there were better educated, brighter, ZANU politicians than ED who could become president.

On Solomon Mujuru’s reverence for education: when the ZANU vice presidency became vacant in 2004, he opposed his wife Joice’s candidature. He believed Sydney Sekeramayi was more accomplished. @DrObertMpofu

Solomon Mujuru backed his wife for the job after the Sekeramayi bid failed. Mujuru, opportunistically, rode a feminist wave in ZANU PF for a woman vice president so as to block Emmerson Mnangagwa from ever securing the vice presidency. Male dominated power politics at play!