BBC News, Harare
A long convoy of armoured personnel tanks rolling through a Harare neighbourhood sparked concerns – for a brief moment – that a military coup was afoot in Zimbabwe.
“What’s going on in Zimbabwe?” one person posted on social media. Another said: “The last time this happened there was a coup.”
Government spokesman Nick Mangwana was quick to allay the public’s fears, explaining the tanks were in the capital that mid-February morning as part of a scheduled exercise to test equipment and were “nothing to be concerned about”.
Yet the chatter and speculation continued, revealing much about the state of the country.
Ahead of the routine military drill, President Emmerson Mnangagwa had, for the first time since becoming president in 2017, faced harsh criticism about his leadership from within his Zanu-PF party with calls for him to step down.
The accusations evoked memories of the lead-up to the coup that toppled his predecessor, long-time leader Robert Mugabe.
He had come to power in 1980 as the revolutionary hero who ended decades of white-minority rule. But his demise was heralded when veterans of the 1970s war of independence withdrew their support for him.
It was a war veteran and senior Zanu-PF member named Blessed Geza, also known as “Bombshell”, who launched a verbal offensive against Mnangagwa.
He became angered when some within the party began pushing to change the country’s laws to allow for the president to seek a third term.
In a series of often expletive-laden press conferences, gritty-voiced and with a furrowed forehead, he repeatedly called on the 82-year-old president to go or face being removed.
“I must apologise for helping him come into office,” said Geza in one press conference aired on social media about the president, who goes by the nickname “The Crocodile”.
“As soon as he [Mnangagwa] had the taste of power, he escalated corruption, forgot the people and only remembered his family,” said the outspoken war veteran, who was then a member of Zanu-PF’s powerful central committee.
“Mnangagwa has also surrendered state power to his wife and children. We sadly see history repeating itself. We can’t allow that to happen.”
Zanu-PF was outraged by his “disloyal” remarks – later described as “amounting to treason” – forcing Bombshell into hiding from where, through his representatives, he continues to make taunts via social media, hinting at protests.
He is wanted by the police on four charges, including vehicle theft, undermining the authority of the president and inciting public violence.
Blessed Mhlanga, the journalist who first interviewed Bombshell back in November, has also been arrested on charges of transmitting a message that incites violence.
Trouble began brewing over Mnangagwa’s ambitions to stay in office during Zanu-PF rallies last year. The president is currently serving his second and final term, which expires in 2028.
The slogan “2030 he will still be the leader” began to be uttered by his supporters despite Zimbabwe’s constitution limiting presidential terms to two five-year terms.
They argued that he would need to remain in office to complete his “Agenda 2030” development programme as he was doing such great work.
A motion was then adopted unanimously at Zanu-PF’s conference in December that did not explicitly speak of a third term but sought to extend Mnangagwa’s existing term until 2030.
Despite a recent assurance from Mnangagwa that he did intend to step down in three years, the influential Roman Catholic bishops have become involved.
In a pastoral letter last week, Zimbabwe’s Catholic Bishops Conference warned that the 2030 debate was a distraction from the things that truly mattered – business closures, high unemployment, rampant corruption and economic policies that favour the wealthy at the expense of ordinary Zimbabweans.
Presidential spokesman George Charamba expressed his disappointment about the clerics’ pronouncement, telling the state-run Herald newspaper the matter was now “dead and buried”.
Nonetheless, Bombshell’s message seems to have landed. It has resulted in a purge in Zanu-PF, with the expulsion of Geza and some of his allies.
Yet political analyst Takura Zhangazha says Geza’s outburst is unlikely to galvanise crowds to his cause.
These days people are less interested in such political spectacles, he says, unlike at the time of Mugabe’s downfall when Zimbabweans, including opposition party supporters, turned out en masse to support the coup – thanking the military and the war veterans.
“Even that attempt by Geza to talk about corruption and the plight of the workers – it’s not going to get people riled up, organising, mobilising. They don’t have that capacity or interest any more,” he tells the BBC.
“I can promise you there’s no repeat of 2017 before 2028,” he said, adding that Zimbabweans feel they were used in the ousting of Mugabe and would not be brought out on the streets again for Zanu-PF’s internal battles.
This is also because there are splits across the political landscape, including a weak opposition.
Even the war veterans do not represent a united front, Mr Zhangazha says.
Geza has previously voiced support in the succession debate for Vice-President Constantine Chiwenga, the 68-year-old former army chief, but other war veterans are known to back the 2030 agenda.
Political analyst Alexander Rusero says it is important to understand the war veterans’ influential role in both Zimbabwe and Zanu-PF.
“They see themselves as caretakers, so you can’t wish away their sentiments,” he tells the BBC.
However, he believes that the current grievances aired by the likes of Bombshell are prompted more by self-regard than public interest.
“They feel as if they are excluded from the cake that they should otherwise be enjoying,” he tells the BBC.
Mr Zhangazha agrees that those who show loyalty within the governing party are likely to benefit from things like tenders, government contracts, access to housing, land and agricultural inputs such as fertiliser and seeds.
For Jameson Timba, the leader of a faction of the main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC), it all sums up the state of politics in Zimbabwe.
“You have a country where the economic situation is deteriorating. People can hardly afford more than one meal a day,” he told the BBC.
“We have major supermarket chains which are literally closing down,” he said, referencing the economic woes facing OK Zimbabwe, one of the country’s biggest retailers that has been forced to close several big branches with empty shelves in others.
Mr Zhangazha noted the forecast for the fragile economy looks even more grim thanks to the fallout from the recent suspension of USAID.
Timba is still recovering from a five-month stint in jail, spending most of his incarceration sitting on a concrete floor, sharing a cell and toilet with 80 people.
He was arrested in June, along with more than 70 others, for hosting an “unlawful meeting” at his private residence when he held a barbeque to mark the International Day of the African Child.
His treatment – and those of his fellow detainees – reflected how opposition politics was being criminalised, he told the BBC.
“The country is facing challenges. Any leader or government worth his salt would actually call for an early election, to check and determine whether they still have the mandate of the people,” he said.
“To do the opposite represents a joke essentially [when] you’re talking about extending a term of office.”
However, there is little chance of an early vote.
For now, Bombshell remains in hiding and the elections are years away – but the succession debate will keep cooking.
