Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa (born 15 September 1942) is a Zimbabwean politician who has served as the president of Zimbabwe since 2017. His rule has been described as a dictatorship. A member of ZANU–PF and a longtime ally of former president Robert Mugabe, he held a series of cabinet portfolios and he was Mugabe's first vice-president from 2014 until 2017, when he was dismissed before coming to power in a coup d'état. He secured his first full term as president in the disputed 2018 general election. Mnangagwa was re-elected in the 2023 Zimbabwean general election with 52.6% of the vote.
Mnangagwa was born in 1942 in Shabani, Southern Rhodesia, to a large Shona family. His parents were farmers, and in the 1950s he and his family were forced to move to Northern Rhodesia because of his father's political activism. There he became active in anti-colonial politics, and in 1963 he joined the newly formed Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, the militant wing of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). He returned to Rhodesia in 1964 as leader of the "Crocodile Gang", a group that attacked white-owned farms in the Eastern Highlands. In 1965, he bombed a train near Fort Victoria (now Masvingo) and was imprisoned for ten years, after which he was released and deported to the recently independent Zambia. He later studied law at the University of Zambia and practiced as an attorney for two years before going to Mozambique to rejoin ZANU. In Mozambique, he was assigned to be Robert Mugabe's assistant and bodyguard and accompanied him to the Lancaster House Agreement which resulted in Zimbabwe's recognised independence in 1980.
After independence, Mnangagwa held a series of senior cabinet positions under Mugabe. From 1980 to 1988, he was the country's first minister of state security, and oversaw the Central Intelligence Organisation. His role in the Gukurahundi massacres, in which thousands of Ndebele civilians were killed during his tenure, is controversial. Mnangagwa was Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs from 1989 to 2000 and then Speaker of the Parliament from 2000 until 2005, when he was demoted to Minister of Rural Housing for openly jockeying to succeed the aging Mugabe. He returned to favour during the 2008 general election, in which he ran Mugabe's campaign, orchestrating political violence against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai. Mnangagwa served as Minister of Defence from 2009 until 2013, when he became justice minister again. He was also appointed First Vice-President in 2014 and was widely considered a leading candidate to succeed Mugabe.
Mnangagwa's ascendancy was opposed by Mugabe's wife, Grace Mugabe, and her Generation 40 political faction. Mugabe dismissed Mnangagwa from his positions in November 2017, and he fled to South Africa. Soon after, General Constantino Chiwenga, backed by elements of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and members of Mnangagwa's Lacoste political faction, launched a coup. After losing ZANU–PF's support, Mugabe resigned, and Mnangagwa returned to Zimbabwe to assume the presidency.
Mnangagwa is commonly nicknamed "" or "" (Shona: 'The crocodile'). It came initially from the name of the guerrilla group he founded, but later came to denote his political shrewdness. Reflecting this, the pro-Mnangagwa faction within ZANU–PF is named Lacoste after the French clothing company, known for its crocodile logo. He is also known in his home province of Midlands as "the Godfather". Mnangagwa was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018.
Early life and education Early childhood: 1942–1955 Dambudzo Mnangagwa was born on 15 September 1942 in Shabani (now Zvishavane), a mining town in central Southern Rhodesia. His parents, Mafidhi and Mhurai Mnangagwa, were politically active farmers. He belonged to a large family; his grandfather had six wives and 32 sons (daughters were not counted), and Mnangagwa himself is the third of ten siblings. His father had two wives, having inherited his wife Mhurai's sister after the death of her husband. Mnangagwa thus had eight additional half-siblings who were also his cousins. The Mnangagwa family were members of the Karanga people, the largest subgroup of Zimbabwe's majority Shona ethnic group.
As a child, Mnangagwa herded cattle and was permitted to visit the local chief's court, where he went to watch cases being heard in a traditional setting. His paternal grandfather, Mubengo Kushanduka, had a great influence on him during his formative years. Kushanduka had served in the court of the Ndebele king Lobengula and fought in the Second Matabele War in the 1890s, and Mnangagwa enjoyed listening to him telling his stories.
By the late 1940s, Mnangagwa's father Mafidhi had become the acting chief of the village. In 1952, a white land development officer arrived and confiscated some cattle from the villagers, including from an elderly woman who was left with just three. In response, Mafidhi's advisors removed a wheel from the officer's Land Rover, resulting in Mafidhi's arrest. The district commissioner said he did not want to fight or imprison him, and told him to go to Northern Rhodesia. He complied, settling in the town of Mumbwa with a relative. Several years later, he sent for the rest of his family, including Mnangagwa, to join him. They arrived in Mumbwa by train in 1955, and over the years more extended relatives came to join them. There, Mnangagwa first met Robert Mugabe when Mugabe stayed with the Mnangagwa family for a time while working at a teachers' college in Lusaka. Mugabe inspired Mnangagwa to become involved in anti-colonial politics.
Education and early political activity: 1955–1962 Mnangagwa, who had begun his primary education at Lundi Primary School in Shabani, resumed his studies at Myooye School in Mumbwa. Most of his classmates at Myooye had three names, while Mnangagwa only had one, Dambudzo. After finding a book in the school library by the American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, he decided to adopt the name "Emmerson" before his given name. After a short period at Myooye, Mnangagwa completed standards 4, 5, and 6 at Mumbwa Boarding School. From 1958 to 1959, he attended Kafue Trade School in Kafue, where he took a building course.
Although his course at Kafue was supposed to last three years, in 1959 Mnangagwa decided to leave early and attend Hodgson Technical College, one of the country's leading educational institutions. The college accepted only applicants with Ordinary Levels, which he lacked, so he took the entrance exam, and was admitted upon receiving a high score. At Hodgson, he enrolled in a four-year City and Guilds Industrial Building programme. He became involved in student anti-colonial politics, becoming an elected officer of the college's United National Independence Party (UNIP) branch. His activism sometimes turned violent, and in 1960 he was found guilty of setting one of the college's buildings on fire and expelled. After his expulsion, he started a construction company with three other men that lasted three months. He was tasked by UNIP leaders to organise and expand the party's presence in Bancroft, a town in Copperbelt Province, until the end of 1961. He then returned to Lusaka, where he served as secretary of the UNIP Youth League while also working for a private company.
Revolutionary activity Recruitment and training: 1962–1964 In 1962, Mnangagwa was recruited in Northern Rhodesia by Willie Musarurwa to join the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), a newly formed pro-independence party in Southern Rhodesia. He became a guerrilla fighter for ZAPU's armed wing, the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA), and was sent to Tanganyika (now Tanzania) for training. He stayed first in Mbeya, and then at a new training camp in Iringa, where he met leading black nationalists like James Chikerema and Clement Muchachi. While there, he criticised the decisions of ZAPU's leader, Joshua Nkomo, an offence for which a ZIPRA tribunal chaired by Dumiso Dabengwa sentenced him to death. Two other ZAPU members of his same Karanga background, Simon Muzenda and Leopold Takawira, the party's external affairs secretary, intervened to save his life.
In April 1963, Mnangagwa and 12 other ZAPU members were sent via Dar es Salaam to Egypt for training at the Egyptian Military Academy in Cairo's Heliopolis suburb. In August 1963, ten of the 13 trainees, including Mnangagwa, joined the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), which had been formed earlier that month as a breakaway group from ZAPU. The ten stopped training for ZAPU and were subsequently detained by Egyptian authorities. During their detention, they contacted ZANU official Robert Mugabe in Tanganyika with the information that they intended to join ZANU and had been detained. Mugabe redirected Trynos Makombe, who was returning from China, to Egypt to resolve the issue. Makombe secured their release and gave them plane tickets to Dar es Salaam. After arriving in Tanganyika in late August 1963, six of the eleven returned to Southern Rhodesia, while the other five, including Mnangagwa, were sent to briefly stay at a training camp in Bagamoyo run by FRELIMO, the group seeking to liberate Mozambique from Portuguese rule.
Mnangagwa soon left Tanganyika to train for ZANU's militant wing, the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA). Part of the first group of ZANLA fighters sent overseas for training, he and four others were sent to Beijing, where he spent the first two months studying at Peking University's School of Marxism, run by the Chinese Communist Party. He then spent three months in combat training in Nanjing and studied at a school for military engineering before returning to Tanzania in May 1964. There, he briefly stayed at ZANLA's Itumbi Reefs training camp near Chunya.
The Crocodile Group: 1964–1965 Upon returning to Tanzania, Mnangagwa co-founded the Crocodile Gang, a ZANLA guerrilla unit led by William Ndangana composed of the men he had trained within China: John Chigaba, Robert Garachani, Lloyd Gundu, Felix Santana, and Phebion Shonhiwa. They were meant to be provided with weapons, but none were available. The group rushed to attend the ZANU Congress in the Mkoba suburb of Gwelo, arriving the day before it commenced on 21 May 1964. At the congress, Ndabaningi Sithole was elected president, Takawira vice-president, Herbert Chitepo national chairman, Mugabe secretary-general, and Enos Nkala treasurer. Shortly after the congress, three members of the Crocodile Gang were captured and arrested for smuggling guns into the country, while Lawrence Svosve went missing after being sent by Mnangagwa to Lusaka to retrieve some messages. Despite these losses, the Crocodile Gang remained active and was joined by Matthew Malowa, a ZANU member who had trained in Egypt.
In addition to smuggling weapons into Rhodesia, ZANLA leaders tasked the Crocodile Gang with recruiting new members from the urban centres of Salisbury, Fort Victoria, Belingwe, and Macheke, and smuggling them through the border at Mutoko into Tanzania for training. The Crocodile Gang traveled back and forth on foot between Salisbury and Mutoko. Soon, party leaders at Sikombela sent the group a message urging them to take more extreme actions as a means of gaining publicity, with the hope that greater exposure would bring ZANU's efforts to the attention of the Organisation of African Unity's Liberation Committee, which was meeting in Dar es Salaam at the time. The Crocodile Gang, now comprising Ndangana, Malowa, Victor Mlambo, James Dhlamini, Master Tresha, and Mnangagwa, met to make plans at Ndabaningi Sithole's house in the Highfield suburb of Salisbury.