Staff ReporterA new plot to remove President Emmerson Mnangagwa through a vote of no confidence or a military-backed ousting was reportedly what led the southern African nation’s leader to cut short a foreign tour to seek much-needed investment.
According to NewsDay, Mnangagwa – who left the country over a week ago after announcing fuel hikes – was forced to return home after it appeared that all was not well within his Zanu-PF party and the military, as a plot to impeach him was being planned.
Mnangagwa announced his return last weekend, saying that Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube would lead the country’s delegation at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Mnangagwa’s allies in Zanu-PF alleged that they were being targeted by unknown people who wanted them to ditch the president through an impeachment, according to the report.
Among those who claimed to be targeted were Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi and Gokwe-Nembudziya lawmaker Justice Mayor Wadyajena, who posted on his Twitter account that he had been threatened with death if he did not ditch the president.
Wadyajena confirmed that he had been threatened, but refused to divulge more information, saying his post on Twitter was public and was “very clear”.
Ziyambi has refused to comment, but unnamed security sources said he had launched a complaint with the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), claiming that he had been threatened by unknown people should he not participate in plans to remove Mnangagwa
According to Daily News, during the chaos in recent weeks, a former government official claimed to have been targeted for supporting Mnangagwa.
Writing on Twitter, former deputy minister of finance Terence Mukupe warned that he would not back down from supporting the president, despite being threatened.
An unnamed lawmaker, who also is believed to be backing Mnangagwa, said the president was not the southern African nation’s problem, but that some sinister dark forces within the government were behind the plot.
The recent plot came months after Mnangagwa had claimed he had unearthed a plot to impeach him, soon after last year’s disputed elections, by disgruntled Zanu-PF party parliamentary candidates.
According to eNCA, Mnangagwa told his supporters at a Zanu-PF healing and reconciliation workshop in Harare a month before the country’s polls that the alleged plot involved party members sympathetic to former president Robert Mugabe.
“Some of those who have won these primary elections have two minds. They have gone to join the Zanu-PF wagon using various tricks, money included, to be elected with a possible view that, once in Parliament, they will band together and move a motion of impeachment,” eNCA quoted Mnangagwa as saying at the time.