The networks of power: How Mnangagwa funds loyalty, manufactures rivalry and manages succession

I promised to write this piece. Not because it is fashionable, nor because it is safe, but because Zimbabweans are being invited—again—to confuse political theatre with political destiny.

What follows is not gossip. It is not rage-bait. It is an attempt to explain a system that many see but few map: how power is organised, protected, monetised, and weaponised in today’s Zimbabwe.

We are not governed by institutions. We are governed by networks. And once you understand those networks, much of what looks chaotic suddenly makes sense.

1. Zimbabwe Is Not Drifting — It Is Being Engineered:

There is a comforting lie told to Zimbabweans: that corruption is accidental, that dysfunction is organic, that chaos is the result of incompetence.

That lie absolves design.

What we are witnessing is not disorder. It is managed instability. A system in which loyalty is purchased, rivalry is manufactured, silence is weaponised, and succession is postponed through controlled conflict.

President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa did not stumble into this architecture. He learned it.

He learned it during the Mugabe era—particularly from 2002 onwards—when Robert Mugabe perfected the art of neutralising threats by elevating counterweights, not successors.

Mnangagwa was once neutralised by Joice Mujuru. Mujuru was neutralised by Mnangagwa. Mnangagwa was neutralised by Mphoko. Mphoko was reinforced by G40. And after fifteen years of this chessboard, the board collapsed.

Mnangagwa remembers this very well. And today, he is applying the same logic—only with more money, fewer principles, and deeper cynicism.

2. Power Today Is Not Held — It Is Distributed:

Modern Zimbabwean power does not sit neatly in offices. It circulates.

It circulates through political loyalists who guarantee continuity, technocratic dependents who execute unpopular decisions, intimate networks that anchor loyalty beyond ideology, oligarchs who fund politics in exchange for extraction, and manufactured rivals whose ambitions cancel each other out.

The President sits at the centre—not as a micromanager, but as a conductor.

He does not stop rivalries. He creates them. He does not reward competence. He rewards dependence. He does not silence threats directly. He lets them fight each other.

3. The Old Guard: Loyal, Predictable, Non-Threatening:

Every system needs ballast.

Mnangagwa’s longstanding political allies—Frederick Shava, July Moyo, Jacob Mudenda, Oppah Muchinguri, Patrick Chinamasa, Owen “Mudha” Ncube—are not innovators. They are stabilisers.

They date back to his era as the godfather of Midlands politics, his nocturnal networks, his long apprenticeship under Mugabe. They are loyal not because they believe—but because their survival is tied to continuity.

These figures are not successors. They are anchors. They hold the fort while other games are played.

4. The Dependents: Breaking Dry Ground:

Then there are those who owe everything to presidential benevolence. Mthuli Ncube. Daniel Garwe. Ziyambi Ziyambi. Lovemore Matuke.

These are not power centres. They are tools.

They are deployed to break dry ground, to float unpopular policies, to absorb backlash. They do not need popular legitimacy because they were never meant to have it.

Their political usefulness lies precisely in their vulnerability. When things go wrong, they can be sacrificed. When things go right, credit flows upward. This is how unpopular agendas are laundered.

5. Intimacy as Statecraft: The Network Nobody Wants to Discuss

Now we arrive at the uncomfortable layer—the one that polite analysis avoids.

Zimbabwean politics has long featured a phenomenon I can only describe as intimacy as statecraft.

This is not about promiscuity. It is about strategic mischief. During my early professional life, I encountered this pattern repeatedly: women linked—romantically or historically—to the President, anchored in strategic ministries, party structures, intelligence spaces, embassies, and later the Women’s League.

Some relationships were real. Some were historical.

Some were symbolic. But all of them anchored loyalty beyond ideology.

By extension, offspring—reported to number anywhere between thirty and fifty-plus—expand the First Family not just biologically, but politically. A clan, not merely a household.

This is not recklessness. It is architecture. And it explains why loyalty in Zimbabwe often feels personal rather than ideological.

6. The Oligarchs: Zimbabwe’s Corruption Industrial Complex:

Enter the oligarchs. Kudakwashe Tagwirei. Paul Tungwarara. Wicknell Chivayo. Pedzisayi Scott Sakupwanya. Billy Rautenbach.

These are not businessmen in the classical sense. They are political instruments.

Their wealth is not incidental to power; it is functional. They bankroll politics. They mobilise dollars. They distribute “philanthropy” priced by influence.

A former football star is worth a shared $100,000 with 300 others. That is what Tagwirei gave our former footballers at a secluded farm yesterday. Buhera youths are worth $50,000. A popular musician is worth luxury cars and a quarter-million dollars.

The deeper the poverty, the smaller the donation. The larger the influence, the higher the price. This is not generosity. It is investment.
And the return is political capital for the 2030 term-extension project.

7. When Bankrollers Want the Throne:

Here is where the problem begins. Some oligarchs no longer want to fund politics. They want to be politics.

Standing out are Kudakwashe Tagwirei and Paul Tungwarara—both drawing legitimacy from church constituencies.

Tagwirei, an SDA Elder, now enjoys open adulation in sections of that church. “His Excellency” is no longer whispered—it is posted. His wife is casually referred to as “First Lady” in some circles.

Tungwarara, an End Time Message pastor on “sabbatical,” faces division within his church. His multimillion-dollar tithe united opinions in only one way: it split them.

Church is the only constituency these men can plausibly claim.

And that is why they are bribing their way into ZANU-PF structures.

8. Manufactured Rivalry: The Mnangagwa Playbook:

Mnangagwa is not alarmed by these ambitions. He is amused. So, he does what Mugabe taught him best: he pits them against each other.

Tagwirei is referred to Finance Permanent Secretary George Guvamatanga—fast-tracked payments, contracts, smooth corridors.

Tungwarara is referred to Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube—same promise, different gatekeeper.

A clash emerges. Tensions rise. Information leaks. Soon Tagwirei and Tungwarara are competing, sponsoring rivals, attacking each other at rallies.

Each believes he is ascending. Neither realises he is being neutralised. This rivalry is not incidental. It is insurance.

9. Enter Mutsvangwa: Noise Without Constituency:

Chris Mutsvangwa plays a different role. He has no church base.

No financial empire. Only vocabulary and ambition.

He attacks loudly—often viciously—on behalf of “the party.” He serves as provocation, hoping someone will take the bait.

But notice this: Mnangagwa never rebukes him. Because the provocation is the point.

10. The Chiwenga Factor: Silence as Strategy:

And then there is Constantino Chiwenga. The only figure with a national constituency. Chiwenga understands the trap.

If he competes with Tagwirei or Tungwarara, he legitimises them.

If he responds to Mutsvangwa, he enters theatre.

So he does something radical. He stays silent. His silence is not weakness. It is refusal. Refusal to turn politics into spectacle. Refusal to reduce ideology to transaction. Refusal to trade a covenant sealed in blood for a covenant priced in dollars.

Mnangagwa is waiting for Chiwenga to react. Chiwenga is waiting for the system to overplay its hand.

11. Why 2026 Will Not Be Quiet:

This architecture cannot hold indefinitely. Succession anxiety. Health questions. Escalating greed. Competing ambitions. Something will implode.

The real audience is not ZANU-PF factions. It is the people of Zimbabwe—watching, tired, uninspired by theatre.

Borrowed heat cannot substitute legitimacy. Purchased loyalty cannot replace conviction.

12. Conclusion: Zimbabwe Is Not for Auction:

Zimbabwe cannot be governed by manufactured rivalries, purchased silence, or oligarchic theatre.

A nation cannot be auctioned to the highest bidder—not even politely, not even slowly, not even in silence.

At some point, the spectacle collapses. And when it does, history will not ask who gave the biggest donation—but who stood for something beyond the transaction.

The question before Zimbabwe is no longer who is loudest.

It is who refuses to dance.