By Staff Reporter
Vice President General Constantino Chiwenga electrified the ZANUPF Annual National People’s Conference in Chinhoyi with a bold public challenge, thrusting the ruling party’s internal divisions—and its future—into the harsh glare of the national spotlight.
Speaking before a packed hall of party loyalists and leaders, Chiwenga invoked the pivotal events of 2017, directly questioning whether the Second Republic—born from a military coup to oust Robert Mugabe—was in danger of repeating history’s most egregious errors.
Chiwenga’s words cut deep, warning of creeping authoritarianism and exclusion within the party ranks.
“Are we not making the very errors that forced us to act in 2017?” he asked, refusing to let ZANUPF’s upper echelons evade accountability or the lessons of the past. The Vice President’s call for introspection landed as both a warning and a challenge, demanding that the party’s leadership confront uncomfortable truths and return to grassroots-driven decision-making.
This dramatic intervention comes amid an escalating struggle for power within ZANUPF. President Mnangagwa’s controversial constitutional maneuvers, efforts to extend his rule, and elevation of Senator Kudakwashe Tagwirei as a potential successor have intensified the sense of crisis. Coupled with a botched Politburo meeting marked by infighting over proposed party reforms, ZANUPF’s once-carefully managed image of unity now shows unmistakable signs of fracture.
By casting ZANUPF’s internal conflict as a battle between genuine people’s power and personal ambition, Chiwenga has raised the stakes for the party—and for Zimbabwe itself. Political observers warn that the outcome of this high-voltage confrontation will shape not only the contours of ZANUPF’s leadership but the fate of Zimbabwe’s democracy in the critical years ahead.
Chiwenga’s bold stance has set the stage for a political reckoning, one that leaves the future of both party and nation hanging in the balance.
