POLITICAL analyst and convener of the Sapes Trust, Ibbo Mandaza says President Emmerson Mnangagwa wanted to postpone by two years this year’s elections to prolong his rule and then leave the presidential post peacefully in 2025.
Speaking in an interview with Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube on the platform In Conversation with Trevor, Mandaza said he was reliably informed that Mnangagwa, contrary to earlier denials, actually tried to negotiate with opposition CCC leader Nelson Chamisa about the deal.
“Looking back, a few months ago I got information from a very reliable quarter that Mnangagwa did not want elections because he knew it would be messy,” claimed Mandaza.
“He sent emissaries to (Nelson) Chamisa in March saying that he wanted elections to be postponed by two years and have a GNU (government of national unity) and he will hand over power in two years,” he said.
Mandaza also said Chamisa did not accept the deal because he believed he would win the election.
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The renowned academic then said Mnangagwa’s rule was illegitimate and he could not rule this country on the backdrop of the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and all other election observer missions’ adverse reports.
According to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Mnangagwa garnered 52,6% of the vote against Chamisa’s 44% in the August 23 and 24 elections, but the CCC leader dismissed the results as a “gigantic fraud”.
Chamisa has since launched a diplomatic offensive to court the support of regional leaders over the election dispute.
He said the Sadc report could not be swept under the carpet.
“I will not be surprised if Mnangagwa throws up the idea of a Government of National Unity now to pre-empt the Sadc action, whatever it might be and keeping it on, it is all indication that he wants to leave in the next two years up to 2025.
“I think he is trying to avoid the (Robert) Mugabe fiasco where he overstayed but also he has been battered. This has been a difficult time for him.
“The Sadc heads of States need to put their heads together and on the strength of all this information and indeed what he might have told them and one of the things that has been worrying him is the failure to get the military back to the barracks. It has been a major problem for him so all power counts, the man must be very tired,” Mandaza further claimed.
He added: “The reason to believe that he wants to use the next two years as transition exit, is that he has to get out peacefully. There are too many imponderables.”
Mandaza together with Tony Reeler are mobilising signatures to petition the Sadc Organ on Politics, Defence and Security to push for a political settlement in Zimbabwe.
He says the petition acknowledges that the August 23 and 24 elections were flawed and it has approached governments in the region through their ministries of foreign affairs.
To date the petition has over 30 000 signatures.