Mnangagwa’s dangerous descent into mob rule

The ongoing, purported and increasingly shambolic, public consultations around President Mnangagwa’s 2030 term extension are no longer just a scheme of constitutional manipulation. They are mutating into something far more sinister.

What should be civic platforms for gathering citizen views have instead become theatres of intimidation, where violence and coercion are on full display.

Mnangagwa is not merely engaged in authoritarian consolidation, but a deliberate cultivation of disorder. ZANU PF, aided by a repressive state apparatus, is normalising the use of naked violence against opponents of its proposed amendments.

There are uncomfortable historical echoes here. The current trajectory bears a striking resemblance to the logic that underpinned Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution in China.

A period marked not only by ideological extremism, but by the state’s tacit encouragement of mass violence carried out in its name.

Under the guise of revolutionary participation, ordinary citizens, particularly youth militias, were mobilised to publicly shame, attack, and eliminate perceived “counter revolutionaries.”

Institutions were hollowed out, replaced by spectacle, fear, and the arbitrary exercise of power.

Zimbabwe is, of course, not China. But the underlying political method, the outsourcing of repression to loosely organised, quasi legitimised civilian actors, is disturbingly familiar.

It is a method that allows those in power to deny direct responsibility while reaping the benefits of fear and compliance.

What Mnangagwa’s allies are now branding as “public consultations” increasingly resemble these historical patterns. These are not forums for democratic engagement or genuine deliberation. They are carefully choreographed arenas of intimidation.

Citizens who dissent from the 2030 agenda are not debated; they are shouted down, threatened and, in some instances, physically attacked. Violence is not incidental to these gatherings, it is constitutive of them. It is the point.

The language used to justify this is bluntly revealing. Slogans such as “ngavarambe varipo” (he should stay on) and “ndozvatoda” (thus what we want) are deployed to frame coercion as consensus.

In this distorted political logic, the loudest and most aggressive faction becomes the embodiment of the people’s will. Legitimacy is no longer derived from institutions, rules or electoral processes, but from the capacity to dominate and silence.

This marks a profoundly dangerous shift. Once political competition is no longer mediated through institutions and norms, but through intimidation and physical force, the threshold for violence lowers dramatically.

It becomes self reinforcing. Each act of aggression invites retaliation; each display of dominance demands a counter display. Violence, in this context, ceases to be episodic and becomes structural.

It is therefore deeply alarming that senior ZANU PF figures, including its often combative spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa, have publicly suggested that those seeking to remove the ruling party must do so violently.

Such rhetoric does not merely reflect political decay, it actively accelerates it.

And as history repeatedly demonstrates, regimes that unleash such dynamics rarely retain control over them.

The immediate political consequences are already visible. By encouraging mob rule, Mnangagwa is eroding the authority of formal institutions, parliament, the courts and even internal party mechanisms.

Decision making is shifting from structured processes to informal networks of enforcers and loyalists. Power becomes diffuse, unpredictable and increasingly contested.

This has direct implications for succession. In a context where violence is normalised, the question of who succeeds Mnangagwa cannot be resolved through orderly or institutional means. It will instead be shaped by factional strength, coercive capacity and the ability to mobilise both resources and intimidation. Given Mnangagwa’s advanced age, this is not a distant or hypothetical scenario, it is an imminent reality.

What begins as a strategy to secure an extended presidency may well culminate in a violent and chaotic struggle over its aftermath. Whether this takes the form of a purge against Mnangagwa himself or against his preferred successor is almost beside the point.

The political conditions being cultivated make some form of rupture not just possible, but increasingly probable.

The socio economic consequences are equally severe and perhaps even more enduring. Zimbabwe’s political economy is already deeply compromised by systemic corruption, particularly in the awarding and management of state contracts.

These patronage networks rely on a minimum degree of predictability to function. Investors, both domestic and international, require some assurance, however fragile, that agreements will be honoured and that the rules of the game will not shift arbitrarily.

Mob rule destroys these assurances.

When violence becomes a routine instrument of politics, contracts lose meaning. Enforcement becomes contingent not on law, but on political alignment and coercive backing.

Competing factions, anticipating uncertainty, accelerate extraction in the present, looting resources, inflating contracts and externalising wealth as quickly as possible. The result is not merely corruption, but a form of economic cannibalism in which the state devours itself.

Ordinary citizens, as always, bear the heaviest burden. Public services deteriorate further, inflationary pressures intensify and already fragile livelihoods become even more precarious.

In such an environment, the line between political crisis and economic collapse becomes dangerously thin.

What is unfolding, therefore, is not a series of isolated incidents, but a coherent, if deeply flawed, trajectory. Violence begets chaos; chaos begets more violence.

Each cycle further weakens institutions, deepens economic dysfunction and narrows the pathways for peaceful resolution.

Mnangagwa’s gamble, then, is not only absurd, it is profoundly reckless. By legitimising mob violence in the present, he is shaping a future in which power itself becomes inseparable from coercion.

And in such a future, no one, not even those who initiated the process, can claim immunity from its consequences.

The lesson from history is stark. Regimes that govern through orchestrated disorder ultimately become victims of it. Zimbabwe now stands at the edge of that precipice.

Pride Mkono is a political analyst and writes here in his own capacity.