Zimbabwe’s political landscape is facing its most significant internal upheaval since the 2017 coup that brought President Emmerson Mnangagwa to power. At the center of this escalating crisis lies a widening rift between Mnangagwa and his deputy, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga.

The confrontation erupted on September 17, when Chiwenga presented a searing 17-page dossier to the ZANU-PF politburo. In it, he accused Mnangagwa of presiding over “corruption, capture and betrayal” of the ideals that underpinned the 2017 coup.

In a swift counter-response dated the same day, Justice Minister Ziyambi Ziyambi, speaking on behalf of Mnangagwa and his loyalists, dismissed Chiwenga’s memorandum as “fundamentally flawed, inciteful, and treasonous.” He charged the Vice President with attempting to “undermine a constitutionally elected President” and “rekindle the appetite to return Zimbabwe to November 2017,” a pointed reference to Robert Mugabe’s ousting.

Ziyambi went further, warning that Chiwenga’s call for the arrest of prominent businessmen Kudakwashe Tagwirei, Wicknell Chivhayo, Scott Sakupwanya, and Delish Nguwaya over alleged multi-billion-dollar corruption was part of a “covert agenda to destabilise government and subvert constitutional order.” Such conduct, he stressed, “should be crushed” and could even warrant charges under treason statutes. He also defended Mnangagwa’s controversial 2030 Agenda, a ZANU-PF resolution often criticized as a bid to extend the President’s tenure, insisting it was legal, constitutional, and widely supported.

This extraordinary clash between Mnangagwa’s camp and the powerful Vice President marks the gravest internal confrontation within ZANU-PF since the military-backed removal of Mugabe. Analysts warn that if the accusations escalate, Zimbabwe could face an unprecedented showdown between its two most powerful figures, both former generals who once stood side by side during Operation Restore Legacy.