The Calm Before the Purge
Something sinister is brewing beneath the polished rhetoric of “unity and development.”
Inside ZANU-PF, where factional loyalty is disguised as patriotism, a parallel political machine is being quietly assembled — one that answers not to the party, not to government, but to a single man and his dynasty ambitions.
On September 27, a new layer of intrigue unfolded in Mashonaland West, where Tempter Paul Tungwarara — the End Time Message pastor turned “Presidential Economic Advisor” — distributed US$200,000 to eight hand-picked “ZANU-PF affiliates.”
Each affiliate pocketed US$25,000 from what insiders now call The Presidential Empowerment Fund — a shadowy channel of cash that flows entirely outside the Office of the President and Cabinet.
But Tungwarara is no civil servant. He doesn’t draw a government salary. His official portfolio is as opaque as the fund he presides over.
Yet here he is — dispensing cash on behalf of the President, mobilising the kind of loyalty that bypasses party organs and answers directly to the man in power.
The Rise of the “Affiliates Republic”
These “affiliates” have become Mnangagwa’s political militia in suits.
They include the familiar roll call of praise choirs: Women for ED, Makorokoza for ED, Varakashi for ED, Hairdressers for ED, and dozens more.
Their purpose is simple — to replace ZANU-PF’s constitutional structures with a parallel command system personally loyal to Mnangagwa.
The distribution of funds in Mashonaland West was just one act in a larger national script. Similar operations are underway across all ten provinces.
By the time the ZANU-PF Annual Conference convenes later this month, these affiliates will be smuggled into the event as bona fide delegates — outnumbering and outshouting legitimate structures such as District Coordinating Committees (DCCs), Provincial Coordinating Committees (PCCs), and even the Central Committee itself.
“They’re rewriting the party rulebook using cash and chaos,” one insider remarked. “Even the Politburo has been turned into a stage prop.”
History Repeating Itself — 2014, Replayed
The plan is chillingly familiar.
It mirrors the 2014 Conference at the Harare International Conference Centre, where Joice Mujuru’s political career was theatrically annihilated.
Back then, the theatre was perfect — drugged, drunken youths dragging her loyalists through the mud, frenzied chants of “Down with the witch!”, choreographed chaos dressed up as spontaneous outrage.
This year, insiders say, the same playbook is being dusted off.
Only the target has changed — this time it’s Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.
The script is already written:
Stage “spontaneous” demonstrations of disapproval inside the conference.
Forge PCC resolutions calling for Chiwenga’s expulsion.
Stamp the forgeries with Central Committee and Politburo approval.
Hire affiliate youths to dramatise the chaos.
Announce the “expulsion” amid orchestrated frenzy.
The Mujuru purge, part two — this time choreographed for dynastic succession.
The Money and the Men:
Behind Tungwarara’s pastoral smile lies a consortium of the regime’s most powerful financiers:
Kudakwashe Tagwirei, Wicknell Chivayo, Scott Sakupwanya, John Paradza, Delish Nguwaya, and others in the so-called “Zvigananda Cartel.”
Their money fuels not just politics but propaganda, not just party loyalty but personal worship.
The Presidential Empowerment Fund they bankroll is less about empowering citizens and more about buying allegiance before a factional showdown.
That this fund is administered by a pastor from the morally upright End Time Message Church adds an almost biblical irony.
William Branham must be turning in his grave — watching one of his own clergy preside over the most grotesque looting scheme in Zimbabwe’s history.
ZANU-PF at the Edge of Implosion
As the conference looms, ZANU-PF stands on a knife’s edge.
The DCCs are being sidelined. The PCCs are being stage-managed. The Central Committee is being forged into a tool of convenience.
And the Politburo — once the brain of the party — is now a stamp factory for dynastic ambitions.
When party structures become props and loyalty becomes currency, implosion is not a possibility — it’s an inevitability.
Pull Quote: “This isn’t politics anymore. It’s theatre. The purge is scripted, the actors are paid, and the ending has already been written.” — Senior ZANU-PF Official
COMING NEXT: “INSIDE THE SAKUNDA REPUBLIC — THE MAKING OF A DYNASTY”
In the forthcoming exposé, we unpack the machinery behind the Presidential Empowerment Fund, the Sakunda network, and the quiet conversion of Zimbabwe into a family-run state corporation.
Brace for the Conference Coup — the purge that will decide the fate of ZANU-PF, and perhaps, of Zimbabwe itself.
