Will Mnangagwa deliver on promise to tackle corruption?

Dumiso Dabengwa, leader of the opposition ZAPU party and a former minister of home affairs, said that while a crackdown on corrupt officials was justified, he believed that the arrests appeared to be politically motivated.

"The operation was not just targeted at criminals, as they call them, but it seems selective of who those people were; which faction they belonged to; and if they belong to the G40 faction, they certainly had to be disciplined by getting arrested and laying charges on them," Dabengwa told Al Jazeera.

"If one group can be charged with fraudulent activity, then what about that one who remains there [in government] who did worse things than those arrested? The whole lot of them have got one corrupt thing or another to answer for," he added.

Dewa Mavhinga, the southern Africa director for Human Rights Watch, agreed, telling Al Jazeera that the arrests appeared to be driven along "factional lines".

Mavhinga said it was imperative for Mnangagwa to demonstrate a greater commitment to accountability and respect for the rule of law than his predecessor.

"The key challenge is for President Mnangagwa to walk the talk and demonstrate through comprehensive action, that his government has zero tolerance to corruption," he added.

"To restore public confidence, Mnangagwa must show that the fight against corruption is genuine, and not a witch hunt of political opponents."

Mnangagwa, who describes himself as a "military man", has appointed a number of figures to his cabinet who have been linked to corruption cases or have faced graft allegations in the past.

Kembo Mohadi, the newly-appointed second vice president of ZANU-PF and current minister of defence, security and war veterans, has been implicated in the alleged invasion of at least two commercial farms, despite the government's one-man-one-farm policy.

Retired Lieutenant General Sibusiso Moyo, currently the minister of foreign affairs and international relations, was accused in a 2002 UN panel experts report of having "covert financial interests" in the Democratic Republic of Congo while serving as director of a Zimbabwean company.

Moyo has denied any wrongdoing.

The government is yet to comment on the various allegations in the agriculture and mining industry levelled at some of Mnangagwa's cabinet members.

Efforts to contact Chris Mutsvangwa, presidential adviser and leader of the influential war veterans' association that called for mass marches against Mugabe, were unsuccessful.- Al Jazeera

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