President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reversed a decision by Zanu PF’s legal secretary Patrick Chinamasa to fire six paid social media activists he called “rogue elements.”
Mnangagwa has decreed that “the said dismissals are null and void,” according to his hand-written comments on a letter of appeal by Jonasi Mandiwisa Musara, one of the affected individuals.
Musara in his letter said they were pleading with Mnangagwa to “reverse the purported dismissals so that we can resume our work of using social media to defend, promote and popularise your remarkable #EDWORKS, Zanu PF party and our beloved motherland Zimbabwe.”
Musara indicated in the letter that he had recently met Mnangagwa who “made it clear that you had not authorised the dismissals.”
Mnangagwa’s intervention which undermines Chinamasa could further divide his party which is battling factional fights linked to succession politics.
Chinamasa is executive director of Varakashi4ED Social Media Unit, a group of Zanu PF online activists paid to attack Mnangagwa’s critics and amplify party messages.
Chinamasa said he fired them for insulting him and other officials.
Tinotenda Gachange, one of the sidelined trolls, on Saturday posted Musara’s letter on X. It now carried Mnangagwa’s handwritten comments and signature, stating that he had not approved Chinamasa’s decision to jettison them.
Without naming Chinamasa, Gachange appeared to take aim at the former finance minister accusing him of trying to intimidate them into abandoning their support for a plan to amend the constitution and remove term limits which would allow Mnangagwa to seek a term extension after his second and final term ends in 2028.
“Successionists and rogue anti-2030 elements cloaked in deceit are attempting to silence the voices of progress. Their intimidation tactics are clear signs of cowardice, aimed at undermining the persuasive efforts of the 2030ists who support President Mnangagwa’s term extension,” Gachange wrote on X.
“President Mnangagwa stands firm, and so do we, undeterred and unbowed.”
Mnangagwa denies ambitions to extend his term, but his critics say he is privately urging supporters to keep up the campaign.
The other activists who are set to return are Tafadzwa Mawire, Felix Muzondo, Pardon Mangwende and Herbert Mathe.
