Zimbabwe is a failed state because we have failed to deal curse of war veterans wielding a veto! W Mukori

 @ Gabriel Munyati

In the high-stakes theatre of Zimbabwean  politics, silence is rarely empty; it is usually heavy with the scent of gunpowder and historical memory.

 

For months, a quiet but perceptible tremor has been radiating from the senior ranks of the liberation war veterans and retired military commanders. Their sudden re-entry into the open  political debate regarding the "2030 agenda" is not a coincidence of civic engagement. It is a calculated signal. 

As President Emmerson Mnangagwa's supporters beat the drums for a third term or a constitutional extension of his mandate, the guardians of the barracks are reminding the nation that in Zimbabwe, power does not merely flow from the ballot box, it circulates through the security-liberation establishment that has underpinned ZANU PF since 1980.

This moment feels hauntingly familiar. It echoes the atmospheric tension of late 2017, just before the fall of Robert Mugabe. 

To understand why the "ED 2030" slogan has hit a wall of olive-drab resistance, one must look at the three deeper dynamics currently fracturing the ruling elite.

Zimbabwe's political architecture remains a house built by the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964 to 1979. 

The men who participated in the guerrilla struggle - Emmerson Mnangagwa, Constantino Chiwenga, and a cadre of retired generals - did not merely win a war; they inherited a state. 

This group formed the iron-clad coalition that executed "Operation Restore Legacy" in 2017 to remove Mugabe.

Today, that same network is remobilising, but the target has shifted. 

When retired commanders begin publicly demanding constitutional adherence and the holding of a referendum, they are not suddenly becoming champions of liberal democracy. Instead, they are signalling that the "stockholders" of the state are unhappy. 

The liberation network that installed Mnangagwa is fracturing because the current push for 2030 threatens the delicate internal consensus that governs their power-sharing arrangement.

Under the 2013 Constitution, a hard ceiling exists: a two-term presidential limit. 

For President Mnangagwa, the clock runs out in 2028.

To stay until 2030 requires more than just a party slogan; it requires a constitutional amendment that would likely necessitate a national referendum.

For the internal opposition within ZANU PF, the Constitution has become the ultimate weapon of denial. 

By insisting on "constitutionalism," these retired generals and war veterans avoid the appearance of a naked power struggle or a mutiny. 

It is a sophisticated manoeuver: they are using the law to block a person, framing their resistance as a defense of the republic's foundational documents rather than a factional feud. 

This slows the momentum of the 2030 movement, forcing the president's loyalists to fight a legal and public battle they may not be able to win without shattering the party's remaining credibility.

The parallels between today and the final years of the Mugabe era are striking. 

Then, as now, the war veterans turned their backs on the incumbent. 

Then, as now, the military began to step into the political light. 

The primary difference is that this friction is occurring much earlier in the succession cycle.

The ghost of the Mugabe succession crisis looms large over the current administration. 

The military-liberation establishment views itself as the ultimate arbiter of ZANU PF leadership. 

When senior figures begin to express "concerns" about the political timeline, it is an implicit warning that the 2017 playbook has not been lost. If the 2028 timeline is ignored, the risk of a deep, destabilising fracture within the ruling coalition becomes a mathematical certainty rather than a political possibility.

In this volatile environment, the most significant sound is the silence of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.”

You are 100% correct Zimbabwe politics has become a dysfunctional “high stakes high theatre heavy with gunpowder, house built by the Rhodesian Bush War of 1964 to 1979.” Robert Mugabe and his fellow Zanu PF leaders have fostered on those who fought in the liberation war the iron-clad belief that they and they alone have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe. 

The war veterans have been thoroughly brainwashed by Mugabe & co. into  paid lip-service to “One man, one vote!” and all the other liberation war rhetoric of freedom and liberty. The war veterans were made to believe that whilst the rest of Zimbabweans had the vote, they and they alone had the veto on who ruled Zimbabwe. 

It is this thorough brainwashing of the war veterans that helped Mugabe stay in power for 37 years and Zanu PF, as the party that spear headed the liberation war to stay in power for 46 years and counting.

The origins of this belief that Zanu PF has the divine right to rule Zimbabwe was the nation’s failure to ask the key question: WHAT KIND OF LEADERS WILL AN ARMED STRUGGLE THROW UP? We should have asked the question long before the decision was made to wage the armed struggle and at every turn though out. We did not and have paid dearly for it. 

Like it or not Zimbabwe has provided the whole world with the worst case scenario answer to the above rhetorical question. 

The war veterans have stepped in Zimbabwe’s chaotic and dysfunctional political system again and again these last 46 years but only to exercise their veto and muddy the waters. The war veterans played a key role in the 2008 Operation Mavhotera Papi whose primary purpose was to punish the people for rejecting Zanu PF in the March elections and thus reimpose the failed de facto one party dictatorship. 

The war veterans were once again used to bolster the 2017 military coup. They once again played their veto card to help force Mugabe out of office but only to replace him with another dictator. There threatening to exercise their veto once again but, once again, to replace one Zanu PF dictator for another. History is just repeating itself. We are blundering from pillar to post. 

The solution is to reject this nonsense that Zanu PF thugs have the divine right to rule Zimbabwe. That war veterans have a veto whilst the rest have a vote. We, the people of Zimbabwe, must finally acknowledge that our armed struggle did throw up leaders who believed they are “more equal than others”. We  need to implement the democratic reforms and dismantle the de facto one party Zanu PF dictatorship. 

Those who continue to believe war veterans have the veto or encourage it in any way are a curse to the nation, to say the least. We need to cure ourselves of this foolishness or we will never ever get our of this hell-on-earth Zanu PF landed us in.