Zimbabwe coup: Mnangagwa and the military may mean more bad news
Mnangagwa is a long time
Zanu-PF stalwart and is closely integrated with military high command,
intelligence services
The military has taken control of the national broadcaster,
troops are in the streets and the president is being held in a secure environment.
All military leave is cancelled and a senior general has addressed the nation.
Yet the Zimbabwean
military continues with the pretence that this is not a coup d’etat.
The obvious response to this is: if it walks like a duck and
quacks like a duck then the chances are it’s a duck. And the sole reason the
Zimbabwean military is not acknowledging this as a coup d’etat is to avoid
triggering the country’s automatic suspension from the African Union and the
Southern African Development Community (SADC). Both bodies frown on coups.
A perfect storm formed ahead of these events and made
military action predictable. The country had once again entered a steep
economic decline (not that its “recovery” had been anything of note). A clear
and reckless bid for power was being made by the so-called Generation 40 (G40)
faction around Grace Mugabe in direct opposition to the Vice President Emmerson
Mnangagwa,
the standard bearer for the so-called Lacoste faction.
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