Zimbabwe: Tensions between President Mnangagwa and Robert Mugabe

Relations between Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his predecessor Robert Mugabe are deteriorating.

On Wednesday, March 7, the head of state was strongly upset by the alleged support of former President Mugabe to a new political party.

The NPF, the National Patriotic Front, was launched last week by relatives of former first lady Grace Mugabe.

Relatives who do not recognize the legitimacy of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government.

At the origin of the controversy: a photo of Robert Mugabe posing with the head of this new formation, a retired ex-military, General Ambrose Mutinhiri. But Mutinhiri has already announced that he will challenge the legitimacy of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to the Constitutional Court.

Mugabe’s photo was immediately interpreted as supporting this political formation and especially an attack by the Mnangagwa government.

The image, widely circulated in the press, appears when we say Mugabe is more sour.

Furious that the new regime regularly attacks his wife Grace Mugabe and especially his doctorate.

Last month during a meeting with the chairman of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki, the former head of state has complained again to have been deposed by a coup.

Mugabe’s return to the public arena and his apparent support for a new party falls just months before new elections and while President Mnangagwa is under pressure to quickly transform his country or lose the support of the street.