Without an inclusive settlement that acknowledges the opposition’s rightful place in governance, Zimbabwe will remain trapped in the pathology of authoritarian relapse.
Zimbabwe today stands as one of the most sobering case studies in the cyclical pathology of post-liberation governance, a nation where the promise of emancipation has curdled into the practice of entrenchment. The whispers surrounding President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s alleged bid to extend his rule beyond the constitutionally mandated 2028 are not idle chatter; they are symptomatic of a deeper malaise afflicting post-colonial states across Africa, which is the inability to translate liberation into legitimate succession.
The irony is not merely historical; instead, it is structural. A regime born of a coup now toys with the same authoritarian instruments it once claimed to dismantle constitutional revisionism, elite patronage, and the systematic silencing of dissent. What is presented as reform is, in fact, relapse and relapse in Zimbabwe is not a domestic inconvenience; it is a continental warning.
Mnangagwa’s succession gambit must be read against the broader global canvas of authoritarian resilience. From Vladimir Putin’s Russia to Xi Jinping’s China, from Erdoğan’s Turkey to Hun Sen’s Cambodia, the manipulation of constitutional limits has become the preferred choreography of strongmen who seek to cloak permanence in the language of legality. Zimbabwe’s flirtation with this model situates it squarely within a global trend of democratic backsliding, yet with one crucial distinction: unlike Beijing or Singapore, Harare has no infrastructural miracle or technocratic dividend to justify its authoritarian relapse. It offers only stagnation dressed as sovereignty.
This is the pathology of post-liberation governance: longevity without legacy, power without progress. Zimbabwe’s succession crisis is not simply about Mnangagwa versus Chiwenga, nor about the opposition’s disarray. It is about whether Africa can escape the gravitational pull of liberation movements that have perfected the art of survival while failing at the craft of transformation. The stakes are continental, the implications global.
The Election Timeline
Zimbabwe’s next general election, constitutionally scheduled for on or before 3 September 2028, is ostensibly meant to be a routine exercise in democratic renewal, presidential, parliamentary, and local government contests that should reaffirm the people’s sovereignty, yet the calendar itself has become contested terrain, a battlefield where the very notion of electoral certainty is under siege. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s allies, emboldened by their proximity to power and the obscene wealth accumulated through rent-seeking and prebendal patronage, are reportedly manoeuvring to amend the constitution to extend his tenure by at least two years.
This is not the language of reform; it is the grammar of entrenchment. What is dressed up as “Vision 2030” is less a developmental horizon than a cynical smokescreen for authoritarian permanence. The project is not about building a modern Zimbabwe; it is about insulating a ruling elite from accountability, buying time for patronage networks to deepen their grip, and ensuring that succession remains a closed script authored within ZANU-PF’s inner sanctum.
Placed within a global frame, Zimbabwe’s manoeuvre mirrors the constitutional manipulations of Vladimir Putin in Russia, Xi Jinping in China, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey, leaders who have perfected the art of bending legal frameworks to sanctify political longevity, yet unlike Beijing’s infrastructural miracle or Singapore’s technocratic dividend, Harare offers no compensatory narrative of transformation. Its bid for continuity is visionless, producing neither megacities nor modern economies, only the recycling of power without progress.
The 2028 election timeline, therefore, is not merely a date on Zimbabwe’s political calendar; it is a litmus test of whether post-liberation states can escape the gravitational pull of authoritarian relapse. If Mnangagwa succeeds in rewriting the rules of succession, Zimbabwe will not only betray its own constitutional order but also reinforce the continental pathology of liberation movements that cling to power while hollowing out the state.
Mnangagwa’s Push for Extension
The rumours of state capture in Zimbabwe are not idle whispers; they are the lived architecture of a nation where prebendalism has been institutionalised into the marrow of governance. What masquerades as economic empowerment is, in truth, the systematic enrichment of a grotesque new aristocracy of sycophants, Paul Tungwarara, Kudakwashe Tagwirei, Scott Sakupwanya, Wicknell Chivhayo, George Guvamatanga, and others, whose fortunes are not the dividends of innovation, enterprise, or merit, but the spoils of proximity to ZANU-PF’s ruling elite and, above all, to the president himself. Their wealth is not accidental; it is the currency of loyalty in a system where political patronage has replaced productivity as the engine of accumulation.
This is the anatomy of state capture: a political economy where financiers and fixers, lubricated by rent-seeking and prebendal privilege, become indispensable to the regime’s survival. They are not merely beneficiaries; they are the scaffolding of Mnangagwa’s power, underwriting his ambitions with cash, networks, and the spectacle of conspicuous consumption. In this sense, Zimbabwe’s crisis is not only political, but it is structural, a fusion of authoritarianism and crony capitalism that corrodes the very possibility of reform.
When Daniel Garwe, ZANU-PF’s Mashonaland East chairman, declared there would be “no elections in 2028,” he was not indulging in rhetorical excess. He was articulating the regime’s creeping ambition to bypass the ballot altogether, cloaking authoritarian permanence in the technocratic language of Vision 2030. The statement crystallised what many Zimbabweans already suspect: that the constitutional calendar is being rewritten not in parliament, but in the backrooms of patronage, where financiers and factional barons dictate the tempo of succession.
Mnangagwa’s push for extension is therefore not simply a domestic succession gambit; it is a continental warning. It signals the entrenchment of a governance model where liberation credentials are weaponised to justify authoritarian relapse, and where the ballot is treated not as a covenant with the people, but as an inconvenience to be postponed, bypassed, or nullified.
Rival Faction Backing Chiwenga
Mnangagwa’s grip on power, though fortified by patronage and constitutional manipulation, is far from uncontested. Within ZANU-PF itself, a rival faction has coalesced around Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, a man whose military pedigree makes him both kingmaker and potential successor. Chiwenga is not merely a deputy; he is the embodiment of Zimbabwe’s praetorian tradition, where the military is not a neutral institution but the decisive arbiter of political succession. His presence in the succession calculus transforms the contest from a civilian dispute into a confrontation between coup-born legitimacy and barracks-bred authority.
The fragility of Mnangagwa’s hold was laid bare in March 2025, when former central committee member Blessed Geza, aligned with Chiwenga, mobilised mass protests that temporarily shut down Harare. That eruption was more than a street demonstration; it was a symbolic reminder that factional politics in Zimbabwe are volatile, combustible, and capable of destabilising the capital itself. It revealed the limits of Mnangagwa’s coercive apparatus and underscored the reality that succession battles in ZANU-PF are fought not only in party congresses but in the streets, the barracks, and the shadowy networks of patronage.
Placed within a global intellectual frame, Zimbabwe’s factionalism mirrors the dynamics of other authoritarian systems where succession is neither institutionalised nor predictable. It recalls the Kremlin’s siloviki politics, where rival security elites jostle for influence around Putin and it echoes the opaque factional struggles within China’s Communist Party, where military loyalty and party discipline intersect; it resonates with the praetorian tendencies of Egypt, where generals remain the ultimate arbiters of political continuity. Zimbabwe’s crisis is thus not parochial; it is part of a broader pattern in which authoritarian regimes, lacking institutionalised succession mechanisms, descend into factional brinkmanship that imperils both domestic stability and regional security.
The Chiwenga faction represents more than an internal challenge to Mnangagwa; it is a structural threat to Zimbabwe’s already fragile political order. It exposes the hollowness of constitutionalism in a system where succession is determined not by ballots but by barracks, not by institutions but by intrigue. In this sense, Zimbabwe’s 2028 succession battle is not simply about personalities; it is about whether post-liberation states can escape the gravitational pull of military-civilian duopolies that perpetuate instability under the guise of continuity.
Party Tensions and Uncertainty
Zimbabwe’s succession battle is not a routine contest of personalities instead, it is the slow-motion implosion of a ruling party that has long mistaken permanence for legitimacy. Within ZANU-PF, the struggle over who will inherit the mantle of power has intensified internal divisions to the point of paralysis, creating political instability and economic uncertainty that reverberate far beyond Harare. What should be a constitutional process of renewal has instead mutated into a theatre of factional warfare, where the ballot is increasingly secondary to the gun, and where the choreography of succession is dictated not by institutions but by intrigue.
The legitimacy of future elections is already compromised, questioned amid credible claims of constitutional manipulation and elite power struggles. The ruling elite, addicted to prebendal privilege and factional patronage, has transformed the electoral calendar into a provisional script, rewritten at will to suit the ambitions of whichever faction holds the upper hand. In this environment, elections cease to be instruments of sovereignty as they become rituals of validation for power already captured.
Placed within a global intellectual frame, Zimbabwe’s crisis mirrors the pathology of authoritarian systems elsewhere. It echoes the factional volatility of China’s Communist Party, where succession is managed through opaque bargains rather than transparent institutions; it resonates with the praetorian tendencies of Egypt, where generals remain the ultimate arbiters of political continuity. Zimbabwe’s version, however, is uniquely corrosive because it offers no compensatory narrative of infrastructural transformation or technocratic efficiency. Instead, it delivers stagnation dressed as sovereignty and paralysis masquerading as continuity.
The stakes are continental. Zimbabwe’s descent into factional brinkmanship threatens to destabilise Southern Africa’s fragile integration project, erodes investor confidence, and undermines the credibility of regional bodies such as SADC and the African Union. The succession crisis is not simply about Mnangagwa versus Chiwenga, nor about the opposition’s disarray. It is about whether post-liberation states can escape the gravitational pull of liberation movements that have perfected the mechanics of survival while failing catastrophically at the art of succession.
The Opposition Landscape
If ZANU-PF’s succession crisis reveals the pathology of authoritarian relapse, Zimbabwe’s opposition landscape exposes the tragedy of squandered possibility. The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), once the vessel of democratic hope and the repository of popular discontent, now drifts rudderless, orphaned by its own leadership. Nelson Chamisa’s voluntary withdrawal from formal politics after the CCC was allegedly hijacked by Sengezo Tshabangu and his shadowy handlers was not merely a tactical retreat, instead it was a fatal capitulation. In abandoning the institutional battlefield, Chamisa surrendered the only organised vehicle capable of absorbing political discontent outside ZANU-PF, leaving the grassroots scattered as political orphans.
Chamisa’s abdication of his role in Zimbabwe’s opposition trenches is strikingly reminiscent of Ndabaningi Sithole’s abandonment of the liberation struggle in the 1970s, at the very peak of Zimbabwe’s armed resistance. Sithole, once the founding president of ZANU, faltered under the weight of internal factionalism and external pressure, retreating from the revolutionary frontlines just as the liberation war demanded unity and resolve. His withdrawal created a vacuum that Robert Mugabe swiftly exploited, reshaping the trajectory of Zimbabwe’s nationalist politics and entrenching his own dominance for decades.
Chamisa’s retreat, though occurring in a different era, carries similar consequences. By stepping away from the institutional opposition after the hijacking of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), he has effectively orphaned millions of Zimbabweans who have consistently voted against ZANU-PF since 2000, who constitute over 40 per cent of the electorate. This enduring bloc represents not just dissent but a democratic mandate, one that has been denied its rightful place in governance. Chamisa’s withdrawal repeated Sithole’s historical error of surrendering the battlefield at the very moment when resilience and institutional consolidation are most needed.
The parallel is sobering. Just as Sithole’s abdication paved the way for Mugabe’s authoritarian consolidation, Chamisa’s abrupt retreat left Zimbabwe’s democratic struggle vulnerable to capture, fragmentation, and irrelevance. In both cases, personal miscalculations intersected with structural crises, producing outcomes that reshaped the nation’s political destiny. The lesson is clear: leadership vacuums in moments of crisis do not merely weaken movements, they alter history.
Chamisa’s retreat into social-media-driven religious messaging is a tragic miscalculation. Zimbabwe is a mosaic of faiths, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, African traditionalists, and politicians must remain value-free if they are to maintain a universal appeal. By conflating religion with politics, Chamisa narrowed his reach, diluted his credibility, and alienated constituencies that demand secular leadership in a plural society. His sermons of hope may inspire devotion, but they do not build institutions.
The appearance of Nelson Chamisa at the December 2025 charity gala was emblematic of a broader drift in Zimbabwe’s opposition politics, a moment marked more by personal projection than strategic clarity. His demeanour suggested a self-assigned centrality to the national discourse, as though he alone possessed the solution to every crisis confronting the republic, yet his vague allusion to a new movement in 2026 did not signal a bold repositioning; instead, it resembled a retreat, a tentative gesture that revealed a troubling absence of coherent strategy or institutional foresight. In a political terrain demanding precision and resilience, such ambiguity risks deepening the vacuum he was once expected to fill. Meanwhile, the CCC’s remnants exist in disarray. Jameson Timba’s disjointed formation is fragmented and seems incapable of mobilising a coherent alternative beyond staying to salvage parliamentary perks. The best minds of the movement, Ostallos Siziba, Fadzai Mahere, and Promise Mkwananzi, have been reduced to lone voices shouting from the abyss, their brilliance dissipated in isolation rather than harnessed in a collective force befitting such great minds, and yet, I remain hopeful that one day, a credible opposition may re-emerge from their collective efforts, without Chamisa, who has tasted the poison chalice of conflating faith with politics and abandoned the institutional struggle at a critical time of need only to re-emerge clearly eyeing the next election cycle.
For now, however, the post-Mnangagwa question can only be resolved within ZANU-PF, not outside it. Unless Siziba, Mahere, or Mkwananzi step forward to take the reins of a new opposition outfit, Zimbabwe’s democratic future remains hostage to the factional intrigues of the ruling party. The opposition’s abdication of institutional leadership has left the nation trapped in a binary where authoritarian continuity is contested only by authoritarian succession.
Placed within a global intellectual frame, Zimbabwe’s opposition crisis mirrors the broader weakness of anti-authoritarian movements across the Global South. It recalls the fragmentation of Egypt’s post-Mubarak opposition, the disarray of Venezuela’s anti-Chavista forces, and the collapse of Myanmar’s democratic coalition. In each case, charismatic leaders mistook personal magnetism for institutional durability, leaving movements vulnerable to co-optation, fragmentation, and irrelevance. Zimbabwe’s tragedy is thus not unique; it is part of a wider pattern in which opposition movements fail to institutionalise themselves, ceding the political terrain to regimes that thrive on permanence.
Geopolitical Implications
Another contested election in Zimbabwe will reverberate far beyond Harare’s corridors of power. The succession debate is not merely a domestic quarrel within ZANU-PF; it is a litmus test of Zimbabwe’s democratic resilience and institutional independence, with consequences that stretch into the realms of foreign investment, regional diplomacy, and continental credibility. What unfolds in 2028 will determine whether Zimbabwe remains tethered to the pathology of authoritarian relapse or reclaims a semblance of legitimacy in the global order.
The stakes are stark. If the electoral outcome fails to produce an all-inclusive power arrangement that meaningfully incorporates the opposition, Zimbabwe’s doom as an international political and economic pariah will be sealed. Investors will recoil from a system where factional intrigue trumps institutional stability, and regional bodies such as SADC and the African Union will be forced to confront the embarrassment of yet another member state sliding into illegitimacy.
The geopolitical implications are therefore twofold. First, Zimbabwe risks becoming a cautionary tale of how liberation movements, once heralded as emancipatory forces, mutate into engines of exclusion and decay. Second, the crisis threatens to destabilise Southern Africa’s fragile integration project, undermining regional trade, security cooperation, and diplomatic credibility. In short, Zimbabwe’s succession battle is not only about who rules in Harare, but it is also about whether Africa can escape the gravitational pull of liberation parties that have perfected the mechanics of survival while failing catastrophically at the art of succession.
The Pariah Status
Zimbabwe’s continued pariah status is not an abstract designation; it is a lived reality with cascading consequences across economics, diplomacy, domestic politics, and regional security. The country has become emblematic of how liberation movements, once heralded as emancipatory forces, can mutate into engines of exclusion, repression, and decay.
Investor flight and sanctions have effectively excluded Zimbabwe from global finance, severing its access to capital markets and strangling prospects for growth. The collapse of trade potential has dismantled its former reputation as the breadbasket of Southern Africa, leaving agriculture and industry hollowed out. Meanwhile, the relentless brain drain and the informalization of the economy erode state capacity, reducing governance to survivalist improvisation rather than strategic planning.
Regionally, Zimbabwe’s dysfunction breeds resentment in Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, and South Africa, where refugee flows and economic spill-overs strain already fragile systems. Its continental leverage within the African Union and SADC has withered, leaving Harare a weak voice in institutions meant to safeguard collective legitimacy. Globally, ties with the United States and European Union remain fragile, defined more by sanctions and suspicion than by partnership.
At home, factionalism between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga risks violent confrontation, exposing the brittle foundations of ZANU-PF’s succession politics. Civil unrest signals growing discontent among citizens, while entrenched authoritarianism deepens repression, narrowing the space for dissent and institutional renewal. Zimbabwe’s politics are not a contest of ideas but a duel of factions, fought in shadows and sustained by coercion.
The instability radiates outward. Spillover effects destabilise neighbours, while SADC’s credibility erodes as democratic norms are flouted with impunity. Zimbabwe’s crisis is not contained within its borders, and it threatens the fragile equilibrium of Southern Africa, undermining integration projects and exposing the hollowness of regional solidarity.
The lesson is clear: unless Zimbabwe recalibrates its politics and embraces inclusive governance, it will remain trapped in a cycle of pariahdom, excluded from global finance, marginalised in diplomacy, destabilising its neighbours, and eroding the very institutions meant to safeguard Africa’s collective dignity.
Risks & Trade-Offs
Zimbabwe’s succession crisis is not merely a domestic drama; it is a crucible of risks and trade-offs that will shape the country’s trajectory and reverberate across the continent. The choices made by its ruling elite, whether to entrench authoritarianism or embrace inclusive governance, carry profound implications for economics, society, and geopolitics.
Isolation from Western finance and diplomacy has deepened Zimbabwe’s asymmetric reliance on Beijing. What is presented as a “strategic partnership” increasingly resembles dependency, reinforcing debt traps and subordinating sovereignty to external creditors. China’s infrastructural investments, while visible, are not neutral; they entrench extractive relations that leave Zimbabwe mortgaged to foreign interests. In the absence of diversified alliances, Harare risks becoming a client state, locked into a cycle of dependency that erodes its bargaining power in global politics.
Generational frustration is metastasising into political alienation. Zimbabwe’s youth, the majority of the population, see no credible pathway to leadership, employment, or dignity within the current system. Their exclusion risks radicalisation, whether through violent protest, populist insurgency, or mass emigration. A nation that sidelines its youth is not merely wasting human capital; instead, it is incubating instability. The succession crisis thus becomes a generational crisis, where the failure to institutionalise renewal threatens to turn frustration into fury.
Repression and authoritarian relapse discourage international aid, leaving humanitarian crises unresolved. Donors, fatigued by decades of Zimbabwe’s governance failures, are increasingly reluctant to underwrite survival without reform. The result is a vicious cycle where repression deepens humanitarian need, while donor fatigue starves the system of relief. Zimbabwe risks becoming a humanitarian orphan, abandoned by the very networks meant to cushion its collapse.
The trade-offs are stark: dependency versus sovereignty, repression versus renewal, isolation versus integration. Zimbabwe’s ruling elite may cling to power, but the costs are borne by its citizens and its region. Unless the country recalibrates, the risks will harden into permanence, sealing Zimbabwe’s fate as a cautionary tale of squandered liberation.
Coalition or Collapse
Zimbabwe’s ruling elites must confront a reality they have long sought to evade: the country is not an island unto itself, but part of a broader international community whose gaze is unrelenting. Their actions reverberate beyond the Limpopo, shaping perceptions in Washington, Brussels, Beijing, and Pretoria alike. If the 2028 succession question is resolved through constitutional manipulation, factional violence, or the outright bypassing of elections, Zimbabwe will not merely relapse; it will collapse, sealing its fate as a pariah state condemned to isolation, instability, and irrelevance.
The arithmetic of Zimbabwe’s politics is unforgiving. Since 2000, over 40 per cent of voters have consistently cast their ballots for the opposition. That enduring figure is not a statistical footnote; it is a democratic mandate. It signifies that the opposition has earned the right to be in power, not as a token presence, but as a coalition partner in shaping the nation’s future. To ignore this reality is to court implosion. Those who broker power in Zimbabwe, whether legally through institutions or illegally through factional deals, must reckon with this fact if they are to avert catastrophe.
The generational dimension makes the stakes even higher. Millennials may have been pushed aside, silenced, or co-opted, but Generation Z will be a harder nut to crack. This cohort is digitally native, globally connected, and less willing to tolerate authoritarian theatrics. Their frustration will not be contained by the same instruments of repression that subdued their predecessors. To dismiss their agency is to invite radicalisation, unrest, and a legitimacy crisis that no amount of constitutional tinkering can resolve.
The choice before Mnangagwa, Chiwenga, and Zimbabwe’s fractured opposition is stark: reform or ruin. Reform means embracing inclusive governance, recognising the opposition’s mandate, and institutionalising succession in a way that restores credibility. Ruin means clinging to authoritarian entrenchment, deepening factional warfare, and condemning Zimbabwe to permanent exclusion from the global order.
Placed within a global intellectual frame, Zimbabwe’s dilemma mirrors the broader crisis of post-liberation states across Africa and beyond. It recalls Venezuela’s descent into pariahdom, Myanmar’s collapse into military isolation, and Egypt’s suffocation under praetorian rule, yet Zimbabwe’s tragedy is uniquely corrosive: it offers no compensatory narrative of transformation, only the recycling of power without progress.
The verdict is clear. Without an inclusive settlement that acknowledges the opposition’s rightful place in governance, Zimbabwe will remain trapped in the pathology of authoritarian relapse. Reform is not charity; it is survival. And survival, in this moment, demands courage, the courage to share power, to embrace generational renewal, and to restore dignity to a nation long denied its democratic promise.