Posts by Charles Rukuni

Tapiwa Mashakada has seen a lot of ups and downs in his political career. Though an economist, Mashakada has had a long history with the labour movement and has worked with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai in one way or another since the beginning of the 1990s, first in the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and later in the Movement for Democratic Change. He is in fact considered one of those in the so-called kitchen cabinet of Tsvangirai. There are only six Wikileaks cables on Mashakada, but they do not give a complete picture of the man. Here they are:

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Politburo member Emmerson Mnangagwa expressed dismay at why the land reform programme was so chaotic in Mashonaland and Matabeleland North since the policy was clear- one man one farm.

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Ghana’s High Commissioner to Zimbabwe, Kwasi Baah-Boakye, told United States ambassador to Zimbabwe Joseph Sullivan that Ghanaians linked to the First Family, through President Robert Mugabe’s first wife, Sally, had told him that Mugabe was beginning to explore the possibility of stepping down.

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Movement for Democratic Change leader told a Visiting United States official that President Robert Mugabe was able to hang on to power because of hardliners like Emmerson Mnangagwa whom he described as the heir apparent.

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Former Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front politburo member Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told United States embassy officials that Emmerson Mnangagwa was a party hardliner through and through and was disliked by his colleagues in the politburo because of his ruthlessness.

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Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai said there was no room for life presidents in Zimbabwe and promised to step down as party leader after Zimbabweans liberated themselves from the current dictatorship.

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Movement for Democratic Change shadow Minister of Finance Tapiwa Mashakada was accused by party president Morgan Tsvangirai of vote buying at the party’s 2003 annual conference together with then Harare mayor Elias Mudzuri.

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Joseph Made has been Minister of Agriculture on and off since 2000 when he was appointed to President Robert Mugabe’s government as one of the technocrats meant to revive the country’s economy. But Made has been accused of destroying the country’s agriculture. The question that remains unanswered up to today is why Mugabe has kept him up to now. There are more than 80 cables on him. Here are the first 50.

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Central bank governor Gideon Gono, who was a long standing member of the Commercial Farmers Union, called President Robert Mugabe on his speakerphone so that he and CFU president Doug Taylor-Freeme could brainstorm with Mugabe the revival of the country’s agriculture.

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