Hopewell Chinóno this afternoon live streamed himself being arrested by Zimbabwe Police. However/ It was later revealed by his lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa that he had been arrested abducted by 8 Zimbabwe state security agents.
Notably, The US embassy tweeted in support of Hopewell immediately after his arrest.
The purpose of this post for me to give my opinion on what I think is happening, specifically on whether Hopewell belongs to a ZANU-PG faction or not.
On a higher level, I can define ZANU-PF along three lines:
– The Mnangagwa faction
– The Chiwenga Faction
– The Outsiders
I have spoken a lot about the Mnangagwa and Chiwenga factions, so today I want to focus on the outsiders.
2017 Coup
During the period leading up to the 2017 coup, Mnangagwa went on an international blitz, identifying prominent Zimbabweans with platforms. These people were recruited mostly to speak against Grace Mugabe and members of the G40.
Some of the people that I can list here include:
Nkosana Moyo
Noah Manyika
Trevor Ncube
Shingi Munyeza
Eric Knight
Ezra Tshisa Sibanda
Stan Zvorwadza
Acie Lumumba
Kuda Musasiwa
Lloyd Msipa
Thabani Mpofu
And As we now know Pastor Evan and Advocate Mahere were also directly working for Mnangagwa.
These people were working independently of Mnangagwa. In fact, there were so many people working for Mnangagwa, with the support of the British embassy in Harare.
The logic was that people should give Mnangagwa a chance because he had promised to implement reforms.
After the Coup
After the Coup, Mnangagwa abandoned almost all the people who had been supporting him and went about consolidating power. In fact, Mnangagwa went back to work mostly with the same people that had been working with Mugabe.
However, many of them persisted, believing that after the 2018 elections they would get rewarded.
Before the 2018 elections
Before the 2018 elections, I made a consious effort to support Nelson Chamisa’s candidacy. I immediately realised that a number of people were opposed to the candidacy of Nelson Chamisa.
This was particularly true for people that had lived overseas. In the period leading up to the 2018 elections, people like Hopewell, Shingi Munyeza and Trevor Ncube were openly supporting Mnangagwa, arguing that Chamisa lacked experience.
Similarly, Diapora Candidates such as Noah Manyika, Nkosana Moyo totally refused to consider the idea of a coalition with Chamisa.
Hopewell Chinóno was even photographed with Priscilla Chigumba at the time when I already started questioning the voters roll.
After the elections
After the 2018 elections, on 1 August 2018, when MDC supporters were gunned down in Harare, and all the way up to the Monthlante commission and the 16 January shootings, most of the original Mnangagwa supporters kept silent.
In fact, others took the stand in support of the unnamed shooters. Journalism became so polarized that just before the elections, people like Hopewell blocked us on twitter.
Attack on Journalists
During this time,our facebook page was hacked, our youtube channel was brought down two times and we had to start from scratch and I was almost lured to Dubai.
Even though I came out in public to protest these attacks, I never even once got a message of support except from my closest friends.
Is Hopewell in the Chiwenga Faction.
A few weeks ago, Hopewell Chinóno explained that he was not in the Chiwenga faction. This is because although he had talked at length about the Drax corruption, he had never said anything about the command agriculture corruption.
So obviously questions started to arise.
Conclusion
In my opinion. Hopewell Chinóno’s c;ose relationships with ZANU-PF politicians has played a big part in the current events.
The question then is who got him arrested this morning? Is his arrest at Mnangagwa’s orders or at Chiwenga’s orders or both?
In my opinion, the arrest was ordered directly by the Chiwenga faction. This could also be confirmed by a tweet by David Coltart, who said as much.
In my view, Hopewell is in the outsider faction of ZANU-PF that is made up of politicians, who are frustrated that Mnangagwa has failed to deliver. He is probably being used by the Chiwenga faction to make the Mnangagwa faction look bad!
