Mujuru has the numbers behind her

• Published date: 02 October 2014
• Publication title: The Zimbabwean

I was pleased to see that most of the feedback received did not factionalise what I said. But I was a bit unsettled when a respected senior businessman, whose intelligence and wisdom always humble me, called me and, instead of focusing on my reservations about Mnangagwa, seemed to want to tribalise the succession debate.

Being a profusely loyal Mukaranga (subgroup of Shona), he admitted that he belonged to the Mnangagwa camp and said he would rather have me arguing for rotation of the Zanu (PF) presidency and bringing it to Masvingo this time around. That debate will be for another day, but, honestly speaking, I would not mind if Mugabe was succeeded by an ass, as long as it would bring food to the table and give me peaceful dreams. In any case, his position was fatally flawed because it assumed that I should lobby for certain things in Zanu (PF). I consider my role purely as that of an observer and commentator not to walk with that party or any other.

Joice Mujuru is Mnangagwa's nemesis and has been so since 2004 when she was made Zanu (PF) second vice president, courtesy of that party's intricate manipulation of democracy. After Mnangagwa was exposedclearly by her campfor planning to wrest the presidium ahead of that year's elective congress, Mujuru took her place in the political sun when her supporters successfully lobbied for a woman to succeed the late Simon Muzenda as vice president.

Her husband, a shrewd military and political strategist in his own right, is credited for Joice's elevation.

Mugabe virtually anointed her his heir in 2004 when he said she must rise to a higher position, meaning his. However, now that he has publicly announced that she is no longer guaranteed the baton, what chances does she have? I believe Joice stands in good stead to snatch the stick from her rivals. She is wellperceived and the numbers are on her side.

Come to think about it, when she and Grace Mugabe were awarded doctoral degrees recently, critics reserved all the flak for the First Lady and hardly queried Joice's merit. In fact, almost all of them regarded her as deserving of the academic award. It never occurred to them that there is a possibility that three UZ lecturers from the Commerce department could, in fact, be the ones who wrote her thesis. Nobody has asked how Joice obtained her first and postgraduate degrees, whether she was ever seen in an examination room in the first place. That means she is wellperceived, both in Zanu (PF) and beyond.

This positions her...