Solo Musaigwa

There are moments in politics when clothing becomes a text, and a uniform becomes a thesis. When Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga stepped into Charles Gumbo Barracks clad in full military fatigue at General Phillip Valerio Sibanda’s handover-takeover ceremony, he was not merely honouring tradition. He was authoring a reminder. A philosophical assertion that in Zimbabwe, power has never fully migrated from the barracks to the ballot.

The optics were unmistakable. As Acting President, standing in the symbolic heart of Zimbabwe’s special forces, Chiwenga appeared not as a civilian statesman but as the archetypal soldier-ruler, draped in the authority of the liberation armies whose myths still shape the political imagination. President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s allies, reportedly glum and unsettled, understood what was unfolding: a silent performance of power, a reenactment of 2017 without a single bullet fired.

To understand the discomfort, one must revisit the history of Zimbabwe’s liberation forces namely ZANLA, ZIPRA, and the Rhodesian units folded into the new Zimbabwe National Army after 1980. That integration was uneasy, fraught with mistrust, and punctuated by the now-infamous 1980s conflicts. But it created a political fact that has endured: the military has remained the ultimate arbiter of Zimbabwean political succession.

The liberation generation governed under a tacit social contract. Civilians rule, but soldiers decide when the civilians have gone too far. Mugabe’s fall in 2017 was not merely a coup; it was the military reasserting custodianship of the nationalist project, invoking the ghosts of Chimoio, Nyadzonia, and Tembwe to legitimise intervention. That Chiwenga led that operation is not incidental. It is central to the current anxiety.

Mnangagwa himself is a child of that liberation compact. He rose partly because he was acceptable to the military establishment at a moment when ZANU-PF’s civilian wing was paralysed by internal factionalism. Yet Zimbabwe has never developed a philosophy of presidential succession that is distinct from its military traditions. Generals retire. They hand over. They salute. Presidents do not. No Zimbabwean president has ever voluntarily handed power to another. Mugabe had to be removed, and Mnangagwa appears determined not to become the second casualty of the barracks.

Philosophically, this creates a paradox. The state demands civilian supremacy; history demands military guardianship. Plato warned in The Republic that the “guardians” must be carefully restrained, lest they mistake their protective duty for the right to rule. Zimbabwe never solved Plato’s dilemma. Its guardians have remained central actors  visible or latent  and its presidents perpetually govern with the shadow of the uniform cast across their desks.

This is why Chiwenga’s attire mattered. Military regulations may permit retired commanders to wear uniforms at formal events, but political philosophy reminds us that symbolism is never neutral. A general does not put on his fatigues without invoking the authority of the institution that once obeyed his command. At a moment of factional rivalry, with Mnangagwa reshuffling the top commanders in what insiders read as a coup-proofing tactic, Chiwenga’s choice appeared less like nostalgia and more like a calculated intervention.

The timing amplified the message. Mnangagwa had just announced changes at the helm of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and Zimbabwe National Army. Chiwenga arrived in uniform while Mnangagwa was outside the country. Even the site, One Commando Regiment, successor to elite units forged in conflict carried historical weight. This was the choreography of a man reminding his rival where the balance of power lies.

Yet the deeper issue is structural. Zimbabwe’s political culture has normalised military succession but not civilian transition. The liberation armies have a clear chain of command and formal rituals for handing over authority. ZANU-PF, by contrast, resolves succession only through conflict, coercion, or crisis. This asymmetry produces instability: generals know how to exit honourably; presidents do not know how to leave at all.

This is not merely a Zimbabwean phenomenon. Across liberation movements in Africa from Angola’s MPLA to Mozambique’s FRELIMO. The military wing often retains moral authority long after independence. But Zimbabwe is unique in the extent to which military intervention has shaped political transitions. With the unresolved 2017 precedent looming large, Chiwenga’s gesture was a reminder that the constitutional order remains fragile and that the military’s patience with civilian politics is finite.

Mnangagwa’s nervous demeanour, captured in the body language of those around him, reflected this reality. The President knows he presides over a state where legitimacy is co-manufactured: part electoral, part historical, part militaristic. His fear signals a deeper philosophical truth that power grounded in history cannot easily be secured by institutions alone.

Where does this leave Zimbabwe? At a crossroads familiar to post-liberation societies. The state must move beyond military symbolism and develop a civilian philosophy of succession capable of outliving the liberation generation. Chiwenga’s uniform, worn at a moment of intense political rivalry, is a warning that the future cannot be built on unresolved habits of the past.

Until Zimbabwe answers the ancient question Plato posed — who guards the guardians? Its leaders will continue to govern with one eye on the ballot and the other on the barracks.

Solo Musaigwa is a Zimbabwean writer, political commentator, and social critic whose work blends history, prophecy, and people’s voices into sharp indictments of power. He writes from within the traditions of the liberation struggle, amplifying the voices of mothers, widows, youth, exiles, and ancestors who demand bread, dignity, and freedom. He can be contacted on solomusaigwa.writer@gmail.com