The silent corridors of the Blue Roof mansion in Borrowdale, Harare, once the epicentre of Zimbabwean power, witnessed a side of Robert Gabriel Mugabe that the world rarely saw. In the twilight of his life, stripped of the presidency he had held for thirty-seven years, the man often described as a “strong-headed” autocrat was reduced to tears. These were not tears of self-pity for his own fall from grace, but tears of genuine devastation for the man who had led the military operation to oust him: General Constantino Chiwenga.
According to those who remained in Mugabe’s inner circle until his final breath in September 2019, the late President harboured a profound and perhaps surprising conviction. He believed that the future of Zimbabwe lay not with his long-time protégé Emmerson Mnangagwa, but with the military commander who had ultimately turned against him. This revelation, brought to light by Mugabe’s last spokesperson, Jealousy Mawarire, paints a complex picture of betrayal, regret, and a prophetic warning that is only now, in 2026, reaching its chilling conclusion.
“President Mugabe was devastated when people who prematurely celebrated the demise of Gen Chiwenga started circulating messages suggesting his illness was terminal,” Mawarire revealed. The General, who had been instrumental in the November 2017 “military-assisted transition,” had fallen gravely ill shortly after the coup. He spent months in China battling a mysterious and debilitating condition later identified as idiopathic oesophageal stricture. While many in the new administration were already looking toward a post-Chiwenga era, Mugabe was reportedly inconsolable. So sick was Chiwenga that South Africa and India had failed to resuscitate his health, until the Chinese military requested that the former Zimbabwe Defence Forces boss be flown to a Chinese Military Hospital, and that is where the miracle eventually happened.
“Yes, the old man, sick as he was, wept and shed tears for the man he believed was not supposed to die, as he still had a huge role to play in the governance of the country,” Mawarire said. In Mugabe’s own words, the General was the one who should have taken the reins. “Gen Chiwenga cannot die now; he has a huge part to play for the good of this country,” Mugabe reportedly told his aides. “He cried and shed tears for the General, for a comrade, for an in-law, for a good human being, and for a fellow Zimbabwean.”
This deep-seated affinity for Chiwenga stood in stark contrast to Mugabe’s feelings toward the man who actually took his place. The relationship between Mugabe and Emmerson Mnangagwa, once described as that of a mentor and a loyal “son,” had curdled into a bitter enmity long before the tanks rolled into Harare. During the frantic days of the 2017 coup, Mugabe had reportedly issued a stern, almost desperate warning to Chiwenga. He cautioned the General that if he allowed Mnangagwa to take power, he was inviting his own political—and perhaps physical—ruin.
Mugabe’s warning was explicit: Mnangagwa would “use and dump” the very people who had brought him to power. He told Chiwenga that imposing Mnangagwa would ultimately lead to “grief” and that the “Crocodile,” as Mnangagwa is known, would inevitably purge his allies to consolidate absolute control. Mugabe’s preference was clear; he would rather have been succeeded by Chiwenga, whom he viewed as sincere, than by Mnangagwa, whom he regarded as a master of deception.
Interestingly, President Mnangagwa has recently attempted to rewrite this history. In a Christmas interview with Reuben Barwe of the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) in late 2025, Mnangagwa claimed that he and Mugabe had fully reconciled before the latter’s death in Singapore. “I think he was misinformed because later on we discussed and he said, ‘Ah Emmerson, I am sorry about what happened, this was the work of people,'” Mnangagwa claimed. When asked if the reconciliation was complete, he replied, “Totally. We had opened up to each other, opened up totally.”
However, Mawarire has branded these claims as a “lie from the pit of hell.” The former spokesperson insists that no such meeting or apology ever took place. “ED knows that’s a lie from the pit of hell,” Mawarire stated. “ED didn’t meet President Mugabe after the coup, neither did Mugabe apologise, apologise for being couped?” He pointed out that Mugabe continued to describe the “second republic” as unconstitutional and illegal until his death, and even publicly backed opposition leader Nelson Chamisa in the 2018 elections.
The veracity of Mugabe’s warning to Chiwenga is becoming increasingly evident as Zimbabwe navigates a period of intense political turbulence in 2026. The “gentleman’s agreement” that reportedly underpinned the 2017 coup—an unwritten pact that Mnangagwa would serve two terms and then hand over power to Chiwenga in 2028—now appears to be in tatters. The rise of the “2030 Agenda” has brought the simmering tensions between the President and his Deputy to a boiling point.
At the heart of the current conflict is the proposed Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 3) Bill, 2026. This legislation seeks to extend presidential terms from five to seven years and replace direct presidential elections with a system where Members of Parliament would elect the head of state. For Chiwenga and his allies, this is a clear manoeuvre by Mnangagwa to stay in power until 2030 and beyond, effectively slamming the door on Chiwenga’s presidential ambitions.
The friction reached a dramatic climax during a cabinet meeting at the Munhumutapa Building on 10 February 2026. When Attorney-General Virginia Mabhiza attempted to justify the amendments by citing the electoral systems of South Africa and Botswana, a visibly angry Chiwenga interrupted her. The retired General, who still sees himself as a guardian of the liberation struggle’s ethos, reportedly shouted that South Africa was “not independent” and should not be used as a model for a nation that won its freedom through the barrel of a gun.
The exchange that followed was unprecedented in its hostility. As Mnangagwa tried to restore order, urging his deputy to calm down, Chiwenga remained defiant. The President, losing his patience, reportedly barked, “I’m the president!” This sharp assertion of authority was a clear signal that the days of the “joint leadership” that characterised the early post-coup era are over.
Mugabe’s prophecy of a purge is also being fulfilled with clinical precision. In recent months, Mnangagwa has systematically dismantled Chiwenga’s power base. In November 2025, the President oversaw the retirement of Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander General Phillip Valerio Sibanda, a key Chiwenga ally, replacing him with Lieutenant General Emmanuel Matatu. Chiwenga himself has been stripped of his oversight role in the Ministry of Defence and War Veterans, reassigned to the significantly less influential portfolio of “procurement and research.”
The General’s health, which so distressed Mugabe years ago, continues to be a point of concern and speculation. His battle with idiopathic oesophageal stricture—a condition that makes swallowing difficult and can lead to severe malnutrition—has required multiple life-saving surgeries in China and India. Some observers have noted that Chiwenga’s physical frailty has often been used by his political rivals to suggest he is unfit for the highest office, further complicating his path to the presidency.
The 2017 coup, which was presented to the world as a “military-assisted transition” to save the nation from Mugabe’s supposed capture by the G40 faction, is now being re-evaluated as a masterclass in political manipulation. Happyton Bonyongwe, the former Director-General of the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), recently released his memoirs, One Among Many, which shed new light on the chaos of those November days. Bonyongwe describes a situation that was far less organised than the public was led to believe.
Bonyongwe narrates how he was caught between his loyalty to Mugabe and the reality of the military’s move. He reveals that on 12 November 2017, as Chiwenga arrived at the airport from China, “army special forces” had to whisk him away to prevent his arrest by the police. The tension was so high that Mugabe’s administration was desperately trying to find a way to fire Chiwenga and replace him with Air Force commander Perence Shiri to quash the rebellion. But Shiri was in Dubai, and the window for a counter-move quickly slammed shut.
Mugabe’s hubris, Bonyongwe suggests, was his downfall. The veteran leader naively believed that a coup could never happen in Zimbabwe. Even as armoured carriers rolled into the city, Mugabe was reportedly more concerned with his CIO terminal benefits than with the existential threat to his presidency. By the time he realised the gravity of the situation, the military had already crossed the Rubicon.
In the years since, the “New Dispensation” has struggled to live up to its early promises of reform and prosperity. Mugabe’s later years were marked by a sense of deep betrayal by those he had nurtured. He felt that Mnangagwa had manipulated the military and the people to seize power for personal gain rather than national interest. This sense of betrayal was what drove him to support the opposition and to issue his final, haunting warnings to Chiwenga.
The current political landscape in Zimbabwe is a testament to the accuracy of Mugabe’s instincts regarding his successor. The systematic sidelining of the coup’s architects, the aggressive push for constitutional changes to prolong Mnangagwa’s rule, and the persistent rumours of internal “capture” by business tycoons like Kudakwashe Tagwirei all point to a consolidation of power that Mugabe foresaw.
As the 2030 Agenda gains momentum, with ZANU-PF provincial structures being mobilised to endorse the term extension, the question remains: what will Chiwenga do? The General, who once held the keys to the kingdom, now finds himself in a defensive position, his influence waning and his health a constant battle. Mugabe’s tears for the General seem, in hindsight, to be a lament for a man who won a war but lost the peace to a more cunning adversary.
The contrast between Mnangagwa’s public narrative of reconciliation and the reality of the ongoing power struggle is stark. While the President speaks of “mutual respect” and “national unity,” the actions of his administration tell a story of ruthless political survival. The threats to exhume Mugabe’s body, the harassment of the former First Family, and the dismissal of Chiwenga’s corruption dossiers all suggest that the “reconciliation” Mnangagwa speaks of is a convenient fiction designed to sanitise his legacy.
For the people of Zimbabwe, the drama unfolding at the highest levels of government is a distraction from the daily struggle for survival in a crippled economy. But for those who follow the intricacies of power, the story of Mugabe, Chiwenga, and Mnangagwa is a classic tragedy of ambition and betrayal. It is a story where the warnings of a dying leader, once dismissed as the ramblings of a bitter old man, have become the roadmap for the nation’s current crisis.
As we look toward the 2028 elections and the potential constitutional overhaul of 2026, the echoes of Mugabe’s voice in the Blue Roof mansion remain. He knew the character of the men he had raised. He knew that the “Crocodile” would eventually turn on the hand that fed it, and he knew that the General, for all his military might, was no match for the political machinations of his long-time comrade.
The tragedy of Constantino Chiwenga is that he ignored the warning of the man who knew his successor best. Mugabe’s tears were not just for a sick man; they were for a country he believed was being handed over to a leader who would prioritize his own longevity over the welfare of the people. In the end, Mugabe was genuine and sincere in his preference for Chiwenga, not because he loved the General, but because he feared the consequences of a Mnangagwa presidency. Those consequences are now being felt by every Zimbabwean as the nation watches the final act of the 2017 coup play out in the halls of power.
The story of the 2017 transition is still being written, but the chapters currently being added are ones of broken promises and strategic purges. As the 2030 Agenda moves forward, the “shockwaves” that Mugabe feared are no longer a possibility; they are the reality of a political system where loyalty is a temporary commodity and the pursuit of power knows no end. Mugabe’s warning to Chiwenga—that Mnangagwa would trick him and ensure he never rules—stands as a haunting epitaph for a transition that promised a new dawn but delivered a familiar darkness.
