Prophet Angel and Apostle Talent Chiwenga shift tone towards General Chiwenga amid ZANU-PF tensions
Prophet Uebert Angel has urged Zimbabweans to stop attacking Vice-President General (Retired) Constantino Chiwenga, in a public intervention that came days after Apostle Talent Chiwenga apologised for his confrontational preaching and praised the Vice-President.
Angel delivered his remarks during a service at his Spirit Embassy ministry on Sunday, November 1. Video clips from the sermon circulated online as tensions between Chiwenga and President Emmerson Mnangagwa continued to dominate discussion around ZANU-PF’s future leadership.
“The vitriolic attacks against Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga is a disgraceful exhibition of political impropriety and a display of intellectual bankruptcy,” Angel told his congregation.
He said political leaders, including Mnangagwa and Chiwenga, could be criticised, but argued that personal attacks should not be presented as ordinary political scrutiny.
“Criticism is legitimate. You should. You must. People criticise me. They criticise the President. They criticise the Vice-President. It’s allowed. But contempt masquerading as criticism is diabolic. It’s evil,” he said.
Angel also pointed to Mnangagwa’s decision to retain Chiwenga as Vice-President, saying the public should respect the appointment. “If the President sees him fit to still be the Vice-President, it must be a sign that I, with my little mouth or big mouth, should hush,” he said.
The preacher singled out Chiwenga’s former wife, Marry Mubaiwa, whose recent public comments about their relationship and the Vice-President had drawn attention. Angel cautioned against joining attacks made in the course of disputes between former spouses.
His intervention followed a volatile period in ZANU-PF. At the party’s annual conference in Chinhoyi in October, Chiwenga delivered a speech that raised questions about the direction of the government and the ruling party. He asked whether the mistakes that led to the emergence of the Second Republic were being repeated and called for an honest review of the party’s decisions.
The conference adopted resolutions supporting changes to ZANU-PF’s leadership timetable, including keeping Mnangagwa at the head of the party until 2030 and moving the next elective congress to 2029. The events at Chinhoyi brought the rift between the President and his deputy into sharper public view.
Apostle Talent Chiwenga, a vocal preacher who has spent years outside Zimbabwe, made his own shift in tone shortly before Angel’s sermon. In an address posted online in October, he apologised for the irritation caused by his style of preaching. He said: “I want to apologize, perhaps, for the first time in my life, for the irritations that I caused in the society because of my methods of preaching.”
In subsequent public messages, Talent Chiwenga praised Constantino Chiwenga’s leadership and said he intended to return to Zimbabwe. His remarks marked a change from his previous confrontational public stance towards the government and the Vice-President. The two preachers’ statements have prompted renewed attention to the way prominent religious figures speak about political leaders.
Angel’s own intervention has also been viewed against earlier comments he made from the pulpit. In July, he referred to an unnamed person he described as a future successor who was suffering from a hidden illness and was “walking, but dead inside”. The remarks were widely interpreted in the context of the succession debate, although Angel did not name Chiwenga.
The latest sermon came just days after a major development in the long-running court case involving Mubaiwa. She was removed from remand on October 27 after a regional magistrate refused a state request to postpone the proceedings. The case had remained unresolved for nearly 7 years.
Mubaiwa had faced an attempted-murder charge linked to Chiwenga’s hospitalisation in South Africa in 2019. Chiwenga was later treated in China, where he spent 4 months. Mubaiwa has had her right arm and left leg amputated since her arrest. Her release from remand followed delays in the case, and prosecutors would need to take further steps if they sought to bring it back before the courts.
The case has repeatedly brought the former couple’s private conflict into public view. Angel’s decision to refer to Mubaiwa during a political sermon placed the dispute alongside his appeal for Zimbabweans to stop criticising the Vice-President.
Another development affecting the political atmosphere was the death of businessman Wicknell Chivayo in a helicopter crash near Marondera on September 30. His wife, Lucy Muteke, and 3 other people also died. Chivayo had been associated with powerful figures in the ruling establishment, and his death was reported amid continuing debate over factional alignments within the party.
Angel said he was not taking sides between rival camps. He urged people to let Chiwenga carry out his duties as Vice-President and warned against turning political disagreement into personal abuse.
Together, the recent remarks by Angel and Talent Chiwenga have made the Vice-President’s political position a focus not only for party figures but also for religious leaders with national profiles. Their public statements came in the wake of the Chinhoyi conference, amid renewed questions about ZANU-PF’s leadership plans and the future relationship between Mnangagwa and his deputy.