Mnangagwa set to name two VPs

Zimbabwe takes its next step into the post-Mugabe era soon, when its newPresident, Emmerson Mnangagwa, names two vice presidents - appointmentsthat will signal whether he is breaking with the country’s old guard.Mnangagwa, whose sacking as vice-president triggered the removal ofRobert Mugabe, made no comments to the media yesterday before the firstmeeting of the ruling ZANU-PF party’s bosses.Party spokesman Simon Khaya-Moyo has said he will choose his deputies either this week or later.Khaya-Moyo told reporters after the meeting that Mnangagwa assuredsenior party officials they would serve their full terms, comments thatallayed concerns of a purge of the G40 faction loyal to Mugabe and hiswife, Grace.Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko, who was considered an ally of theG40, has already been sacked from the party and his post, and someMnangagwa supporters have called for unspecified action against G40.But the president has urged citizens not to undertake any form of “vengeful retribution”.Party and government officials have refused to comment on speculation inprivately owned newspapers and on social media that Mnangagwa is likelyto make military chief General Constantine Chiwenga one of hisdeputies, as a reward for spearheading the de facto coup that endedMugabe’s rule.The new president has been criticised by some Zimbabweans and oppositionparties for appointing Air Marshall Perrance Shiri as lands,agriculture and rural resettlement minister and Major-General SibusisoMoyo as foreign and international trade minister, rather than bringingin younger candidates less associated with the Mugabe era.