Mnangagwa opens Zanu PF conference in Chinhoyi as Chiwenga calls for “brutal and honest self-appraisal”

Updates

1. 08:35 BST, Monday 19 OctoberLatest

   Speaking to journalists after the conference closed on Saturday, President Mnangagwa played down talk of division in the party. “The party is united. In any movement, you have people who divert from the centre of the party, that is expected, but overall the party is united,” The Herald quotes him as saying. “If you have a party, from January to December and you find no dissenting voice in that party, something is wrong.” He added that the aim was to have “divergent views, but at the end of the day we agree on a common trajectory”. NewZimbabwe carries similar words and quotes him as adding: “Any revolutionary party will always have people that fail to run the correct line and fall by the wayside.” Hanyani News also reports that he said a revolutionary party will always have members who fall by the wayside, and that the party's task is to keep preaching the correct line. Mnangagwa did not name Vice President Chiwenga in the remarks quoted. NewZimbabwe describes them as the President downplaying a rift with his deputy while warning dissenters; that is its reading, not something he said. We have still not seen a public response from Chiwenga, and the party has not published the full written text of the resolutions.

2. 16:35 BST, Sunday 18 October

   Local Government Minister Daniel Garwe, who chairs Zanu PF in Mashonaland East, used Saturday's session to call for loyalty to President Mnangagwa, ZimCitizenNews reports. It quotes him as saying: “A sun cannot rise when another one is still there” and “We are all under President Emmerson Mnangagwa. Be a good follower; a bad follower is a bad leader tomorrow.” Posts sharing a clip of the speech on X quote him as saying: “Strong and good leadership is born out of good follower-ship, a terrible follower is a bad leader tomorrow.” Garwe did not name Chiwenga in the remarks quoted. ZimCitizenNews describes the remarks as a swipe at the Vice President; that is its reading, not something Garwe said. We have still not seen a public response from Chiwenga, and the party has not published the full written text of the resolutions.

3. 12:35 BST, Sunday 18 October

   In his closing address, President Mnangagwa told government ministries, departments and agencies to “remain aligned with Party policies and act with greater urgency in implementing agreed Conference Resolutions and decisions”, National Interest News reports. National Interest News also quotes him as saying: “United we stand, divided we fall; unity is indispensable to our continued success. ZANU PF is supreme.” NewZimbabwe reports a similar instruction to government and quotes him as saying “ZANU PF is supreme.” National Interest News also reports that the resolutions extend the party's internal electoral cycle from five to seven years, matching the seven-year national cycle set by Amendment No. 3, and quotes the President as saying: “Our actions have shown that no-one owns the revolution; ZANU PF is an enormous, mass-Party.” The party has still not published the full written text of the resolutions, and we have not seen a public response from Chiwenga.

4. 08:35 BST, Sunday 18 October

   Written reports of the resolutions are now out. The Herald reports that the party's Secretary for Legal Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi, read them to the conference, and quotes him as saying: “Conference resolved that we change our electoral cycle. We recall that we were due to have a Congress next year but, because of the constitutional amendment that happened, we agreed that Congress will be in 2029.” That puts the original congress date at 2027, which NewZimbabwe also reports. Ziyambi added: “We also agreed that we have to amend our party constitution to accommodate these changes that are taking place.” The Herald says the conference also resolved that Mnangagwa will remain party President at the 2029 congress and be the party's presidential candidate at the next elections, and that provincial chairpersons told delegates the resolutions came out of consultations at cell, branch, district and provincial level. NewZimbabwe reports that Mnangagwa stays party leader until 2030, bringing the party's constitution into line with Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3), which extended his term of office, due to end in 2028, by two years. The party has not yet published the full written text. Chiwenga's Friday speech has also drawn criticism inside the party and beyond. Zanu PF spokesperson Christopher Mutsvangwa told The NewsHawks that Chiwenga had “opportunistically abused the granted privilege” of introducing the President and “laboured in vain much like a loose bolt in a car engine”, Pindula News reports. Former Norton MP Temba Mliswa challenged Chiwenga to resign if he was “so irreconcilably at odds with the prevailing order”, Zimbabwe Now reports. We have not seen a public response from Chiwenga.

5. 20:35 BST, Saturday 17 October

   The conference closed on Saturday afternoon with Zanu PF endorsing President Mnangagwa as its sole presidential candidate for the party's next national congress, now set for 2029, ZBC News reports. ZBC says the resolution was among more than 30 adopted in Chinhoyi and comes as the party moves to align its own constitution with the national Constitution, as changed by Amendment No. 3. In a video report, ZBC quotes the party's Secretary for Legal Affairs, Ziyambi Ziyambi, as saying delegates also resolved to move the next congress from 2027 to 2029. Some accounts give the original date as 2028, and we have not yet seen the full written text of the resolutions; the party has posted them as a video on its official X account. Also at the close, Mnangagwa appointed Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube to the Politburo as Secretary for Science and Technology, with immediate effect, The Herald and ZBC report. In his closing address, the President told delegates: “We are a great, people-driven, revolutionary movement which can never be stopped,” and urged them to go back to their provinces “with our heads held high”, according to The Herald. Speaking to reporters afterwards, he said disagreement within Zanu PF should not necessarily be read as disunity, ZiFM Stereo reports. Vice President Mohadi, who was taken ill on Friday, rejoined the conference on Saturday, The Herald and ZimLive report. The Herald quotes presidential spokesman George Charamba as saying Mohadi was kept in hospital overnight and “is doing remarkably well”, and that President Mnangagwa “passed by the hospital to check on him before proceeding to Chinhoyi” that morning.