Zimbabwe President Swears Son, and Nephew Into New Government
President Emmerson Mnangagwa appointed his son and nephew to key ministerial positions, prompting the opposition to label the new Zimbabwean government as the “worst” since independence.
During a ceremony in the capital Harare, more than twenty ministers and ten deputies took the oath of office under a president who won a second term last month in a contested election that international observers deemed to have fallen short of democratic standards.
“I Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa, President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, do call upon you all to take the oath of Minister,” said the 80-year-old wearing his trademark striped scarf in the national colors.
Mnangagwa’s 34-year-old son, Kudakwashe David, was appointed deputy finance minister, a move that was deemed “particularly troubling” by the principal opposition party.
Tongai Mnangagwa, the 45-year-old nephew of the president, was appointed deputy minister of tourism.
“The appointment came as a shock. The whole of yesterday I could not believe it,” David Mnangagwa told reporters after the swearing-in.
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He will report to Minister Mthuli Ncube, who, according to critics, has presided over the country’s economic catastrophe and sky-high inflation despite retaining his position.
“Constituted of (Mnangagwa’s) friends, family, loyalists and the least qualified, the cabinet is the worst since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980,” said Promise Mkwananzi, a spokesman for the leading opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).
Nicknamed “The Crocodile,” Mnangagwa, whose ZANU-PF party has been in government for more than four decades, came to power in 2017 following a coup that deposed the late leader Robert Mugabe, and narrowly won a presidential election the following year.
On August 23, the president was re-elected with 52,6 percent of the vote to 45-year-old CCC leader Nelson Chamisa’s 44 percent.
The CCC deemed the outcome “defective, chaotic, and illegal” and demanded a new election.
Numerous electoral irregularities have been criticized by both regional and international observers.
Zimbabwe President Swears Son, and Nephew Into New Government
