Zimbabwe’s state media now says sacked Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was plotting to seize power.
Mnangagwa who was the leading contender to succeed 93-year-old Robert Mugabe was relieved off his duty as the country’s vice president on Monday in a bitter power struggle paving way for president’s wife Grace Mugabe to take over.
The government-owned Chronicle newspaper published an excoriating editorial accusing Mnangagwa and his supporters of being “prepared to stampede President Mugabe from power”.
“The President had warned his deputy time and again to desist from having grand designs to seize power unconstitutionally,” the Bulawayo-based paper said.
The paper also accused Mnangagwa of “running parallel structures within the ruling Zanu-PF party and fomenting divisions”.
Mnangagwa has not yet commented on his dismissal.
During a rally at the weekend in Bulawayo, Grace Mugabe was jeered. In the Sunday rally, Grace had claimed that Mnangagwa tried to stage a coup in 1980 in a bid to take over as the country’s first post-independence leader.
The Chronicle described the jeering as “the highest level of indiscipline ever seen in the Zanu-PF” and that Grace was targeted for exposing the “nefarious activities” of Mnangagwa’s supporters.
