Emmerson Mnangagwa

Biography

Emmerson Mnangagwa was born in 1942 in Shabani, Southern Rhodesia, and grew up in Northern Rhodesia, where his family moved after his father fell foul of colonial officials. As a student at Hodgson Technical College he became an officer of UNIP's branch and was expelled in 1960 after setting fire to a college building. He joined ZAPU in 1962, trained as a guerrilla in Tanganyika and at the Egyptian Military Academy, and in August 1963 switched to the newly formed ZANU.

Leading the 'Crocodile' group of fighters, he blew up a train near Fort Victoria in late 1964. Arrested in January 1965, he escaped a death sentence and spent ten years in prison, where he befriended Robert Mugabe and sat law examinations through the University of London. Deported to Zambia in 1975, he studied law at the University of Zambia and practised briefly before joining ZANU in Mozambique as Mugabe's assistant and security chief; he accompanied Mugabe to the Lancaster House talks in 1979.

After independence he was minister of state for national security from 1980 to 1988, the period of the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland, then justice minister, speaker of parliament, minister of rural housing, defence minister and again justice minister. Mugabe made him first vice-president in 2014 but dismissed him in November 2017 amid a rivalry with Grace Mugabe. He fled to South Africa; the army then moved against Mugabe, ZANU-PF chose Mnangagwa as its leader, and he was sworn in as president on 24 November 2017.

He won disputed elections in 2018 and 2023 and escaped unhurt when a grenade exploded at his rally in Bulawayo in June 2018. His government crushed protests against a steep fuel price rise in 2019, and in 2024 the United States sanctioned him over human rights abuses and corruption. He chaired the Southern African Development Community in 2024-2025.