How Mnangagwa has achieved what Mugabe could only wish for

Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for nearly four decades with an undisguised ambition to forge a one-party state. He said so openly in the late 1980s. The Unity Accord of 1987, which dissolved ZAPU into ZANU, was designed to cement that outcome.

Yet despite this sweeping consolidation, Mugabe never succeeded in eliminating political competition. The arrival of the MDC in 1999 marked a historic break that he could never fully reverse.

Court rulings, parliamentary contests and the gradual growth of civic space created pressure points that Mugabe constantly struggled to neutralise. His dream was clear but the path to its fulfilment constantly slipped from his grasp.

Emmerson Mnangagwa has approached the same dream with a different temperament and a far more calculating political intelligence.

Where Mugabe relied on charisma, revolutionary legitimacy and a dense web of patronage networks that often competed with one another, Mnangagwa has relied on quiet institutional capture, incremental coercion and the strategic alliance of the state with the security sector.

In less than a decade he has built the architecture that Mugabe pursued for nearly 40 years. Zimbabwe has not become a one-party state in constitutional language but in political reality it increasingly behaves like one.

To understand this development, it is necessary to begin with Mugabe’s own failure. Throughout the 1990s he attempted to centralise political authority under ZANU PF. Yet he tolerated a surprising degree of internal contestation.

His cabinet contained competing factions. The security sector was powerful but not singularly aligned. Parliamentary backbenchers could revolt as they did during critical legislative battles.

Most importantly, Mugabe did not eliminate the possibility of genuine electoral competition within the formal political system.

The shock defeats of 2000 revealed the existence of an electorate that was no longer fearful and of an opposition that was confident enough to challenge him in open political combat.

Mnangagwa inherited that fractured landscape and understood the lesson Mugabe refused to internalise.

The survival of ZANU PF required more than charismatic authority. It required the systematic disabling of rival centres of power while maintaining a public narrative of constitutional rule.

Mnangagwa’s tenure from 2017 has therefore been defined by a relentless project of institutional capture. The judicial system has been reconfigured into an obedient partner.

Parliament has become an arena for ritual rather than debate. The electoral commission functions as an instrument of managed outcomes rather than an independent referee. Civic space is tolerated only when it poses no genuine threat.

The decline of the opposition has been the defining achievement of this new era. Where Mugabe faced a unified and well-resourced MDC, Mnangagwa has faced only a fragmented and exhausted opposition pulled apart by internal divisions, legal warfare and strategic co-optation.

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The use of court rulings to reassign party assets and parliamentary seats has turned political competition into a maze of procedural traps that only the ruling party can navigate.

The once powerful centre of opposition gravity has shrunk into small quarrelling camps. Multiparty competition survives in form but not in substance.

Alongside these political manoeuvres, Mnangagwa has deepened the fusion between the state and the security sector. While Mugabe often clashed with military elites and relied on a delicate balance of factions, Mnangagwa governs in direct partnership with them.

The security state provides the backbone of his authority. It amplifies coercion while maintaining enough distance to preserve the performance of civil governance.

Zimbabwe now resembles a hybrid order where the army and intelligence services provide the steel frame beneath a civilian political surface.

Economic patronage has also been consolidated and centralised. Under Mugabe, various factions competed for access to land leases, mining concessions and commercial opportunities. Under Mnangagwa the gatekeeping structure is narrower and more predictable.

Access to economic opportunity now flows through networks that are tightly aligned with the president and his inner circle. This reliance on patronage does not merely reward loyalty.

It incentivises political quiescence among business elites, traditional leaders and urban informal markets that depend on state-controlled access to opportunity.

The legal environment has equally shifted. The Patriot Act and related regulatory frameworks have created a new climate where dissent is constrained not only by overtly repressive measures but by strategic ambiguity.

Citizens and organisations are not always sure where the line lies. As a result they self-censor. The landscape appears open but the risks are high enough to deter effective challenge. This is the hallmark of a de facto one-party state.

The opposition is permitted to exist but only within narrow boundaries. Elections are held but alternation of power is impossible. Institutions speak the language of legality while functioning as guardians of a single political centre.

If this is the completion of Mugabe’s dream it arrives with an important caveat. Zimbabwe is a country where political competition does not exist between parties but within ZANU PF itself. The decisive struggle is the one unfolding between rival elite factions around succession.

Mnangagwa faces pressure from within the security complex, particularly from forces aligned to Constantino Chiwenga who view the presidency as their own pending entitlement.

In this sense the one-party state is not stable. It is a single centre of authority that is constantly under internal negotiation and occasional threat.

Yet even with this internal contestation, Mnangagwa has achieved what Mugabe never could. He has engineered a political order where ZANU PF rules without meaningful challenge. The opposition is powerless. The courts are compliant.

The economy is managed through patronage rather than market discipline. State security structures remain loyal. Civil society is restricted. Elections occur without risk. The political script is written in advance and only the actors change.

Zimbabwe has therefore arrived at a new phase. It is neither a democracy nor a traditional authoritarian state. It is a dominant party hybrid that performs the rituals of pluralism while ensuring that only one outcome is possible.

This is the dream Mugabe held but failed to realise. Mnangagwa has not only inherited it. He has perfected it.

Gabriel Manyati is a hard-hitting journalist and analyst delivering incisive commentary on politics, human interest stories, and current affairs.