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The situation in Zimbabwe is still quite uncertain. But one thing is sure: it will never be the same after the early morning hours of Nov. 15, when the army leadership announced it had taken control, but insisting it was "not military coup."
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The generals claimed they had stepped in to take action against "criminals" around President Robert Mugabe and promised the situation would "return to normal" after their operation was over. They guaranteed the president was "safe" and "his safety is assured" – and proceeded to arrest his recently-appointed Finance Minister, Ignatius Chombo.
Not a word was said about the president’s wife, Grace Mugabe. But every finger points to her being the main reason for the army’s intervention.
Pundits inside and outside Africa are still hotly debating whether the army’s action amounted to a coup or not, most concluding, however, that "a coup by any other name is still a coup."
Grace Mugabe – who leads a faction of the ruling ZANU-PF called Generation 40, or G-40, has been accused by army spokespersons of dividing the ruling party and causing tensions between veterans of the liberation struggle and younger elements backing the president’s very apparent intention to have her succeed him.
The current tensions have been boiling below the surface for some time, but the army leadership did call a press conference on Nov. 13, warning that it would legally intervene if the government was threatened.
Things came to a head after Mugabe a week earlier fired his longtime fellow veteran liberation fighter, Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, accusing him of showing signs of disloyalty.
But the army, over which the sacked vice president had institutional control for many years, saw his dismissal as a "last straw" and on Wednesday morning fulfilled its promise to intervene.
Mugabe confirmed to South African President Jacob Zuma that he is "fine, but confined" – and Zimbabwe’s ambassador to the U.K. countered press speculation that Grace Mugabe had fled to neighboring Namibia, saying she was in the country.
Mnangagwa had previously returned home after fleeing following his sacking from both the government and ruling party.
The army’s dislike for Grace Mugabe peaked after she made disparaging remarks about it during a recent political rally. She is likewise despised by the veterans of the liberation struggle, several of whom, like Mnangagwa, were being purged and replaced by her younger G-40 supporters, including Chombo.
The veterans maintain the president’s wife (there is no position called "First Lady" in Zimbabwe) has no revolutionary credentials – and was not yet even born when Mnangagwa was first arrested in 1960 for revolutionary activity.
The president made no secret about his support for his wife’s ambitions and though the army says it remains loyal to him, it’s made no secret either about its opposition to her becoming the next candidate for the leadership of the party, as a precursor to becoming the automatic ZANU-PF candidate to replace her husband at the next presidential elections, due soon.
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From all appearances, the veterans prefer to support Mnangagwa, who had been vice president ever since Mugabe eased-out Joshua Nkomo, the co-leader of the revolutionary government installed by the victorious fighters, soon after the Patriotic Front (PF) took office in 1980.
An important scheduled party conference is to be held very soon and it is widely expected that Mnangagwa will be nominated and elected – whether or not Mugabe agrees.
The 93-year-old president, who has ruled for 37 years, has fallen from grace. His opinion in the current situation will hardly matter. He now has a choice to go with whatever decision his party takes with the army’s backing – or be overruled, even deposed, if he decides to continue to stand by his wife.
Tomorrow remains uncertain, but the situation in Zimbabwe will continue to be of serious concern to its neighboring governments in Southern Africa – especially Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and South Africa, where majority governments took office following similar long liberation struggles.
The country’s economic situation is dire, having moved from being described as "the bread-basket of Southern Africa" in the 80s and 90s to a current position of unemployment being estimated as high as 95 percent and the national debt at over 70 percent of the economy.
Hardships have been many for the average Zimbabwean, especially during the last five years when hyperinflation and other negative economic factors bit harder than ever.
The opposition, while weak, has long supported Western demands that the government return or compensate for lands seized from white farmers and handed to landless veterans who remained dirt poor years after the revolutionary triumph.
But it is not expected that the parliamentary opposition will benefit greatly from the realignment of power within the ruling party and government, even though the MDC has called for "a coalition government" and "a return to democratic rule."
What’s happening in Zimbabwe today is no "Arab Spring" revolt. It is not expected that Mugabe – the only leader the country has known since independence and who is still largely admired for his historical role – will be dragged through the streets of Harare or come to an end akin to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.
But his days as the country’s maximum leader are numbered – and any number can play now, as the country adjusts to this new reality.
The debates will continue for some time as to what Mugabe’s political legacy will now be, whether the army’s actions constituted a coup or not -- and the future of his wife.
But above all, in the midst of all the uncertainty, the only certainty remains that Zimbabwe will definitely not be the same again, whatever happens tomorrow.
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