MNANGAGWA IS BUYING THE ARMY BECAUSE HE FEARS ANOTHER COUP

What is happening in Zimbabwe today is very simple. President Emmerson Mnangagwa is afraid. He is afraid of the same thing he used to do to others. He helped lead a coup in 2017. He survived a secret coup attempt in 2019. Now he wakes up every day worried that the army will do to him what he did to Robert Mugabe.

This week he gave more than one hundred cars to the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. He says it is part of a plan to give the army seven hundred vehicles. He says it is to help the army move better. But this is not about transport. This is about fear. This is about buying loyalty. It is about stopping soldiers from turning to Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.

Mnangagwa and Chiwenga once worked together to remove Mugabe. Now they are enemies who want to replace each other. Both of them have long army histories. Both of them know that ZANU PF survives because of the gun. So they are fighting over who controls the gun. Every car that is given, every job that is changed, is part of this fight for power.

Mnangagwa has been quietly breaking the old army system. He has pushed out top commanders. Some were sent away. Some were sidelined. Some died in ways that still raise questions. Inside the barracks there is fear and anger. Inside ZANU PF there is tension and suspicion. People can see that something is not right. The army has now had five leaders in eight years. Under Mugabe there was one army boss for fourteen years. This shows how unstable things are now.

Next month ZANU PF will meet in Mutare. They say it is not an election meeting, but we all know it is about power. Mnangagwa’s people want to use that meeting to push the idea of a third term. They want him to stay until twenty thirty, even when the constitution says twenty twenty eight is the last year.

To protect himself, Mnangagwa is using a plan called coup proofing. He changes army leaders again and again. He gives them cars, money and soft jobs. He sets up security teams that watch each other. No one group can plan in secret. He promotes people who please him, not people who are good at their jobs. He moves officers around so they never build strong bonds. He puts soldiers into police, intelligence and ministries so that the whole state becomes one big barracks.

He also uses tribalism. People get top posts because they come from the right area or share his background. This breaks unity and makes people fear to speak out. It keeps him safe for a while, but it weakens the country.

Mnangagwa loves to talk about patriotism, the liberation war and protecting the republic. He tells soldiers that to be loyal is to keep quiet, even when salaries are low and life is hard. This is the same lie Mugabe used. Gifts and slogans did not save Mugabe in the end, and they will not save Mnangagwa forever.

ZANU PF stays in power because of the army. Without the army, it falls. That is why Mnangagwa is spending more time buying generals than serving citizens. Every new car he hands over is a sign of how scared he has become. A confident leader does not need to bribe soldiers.