The 80-year-old Zimbabwean President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, nicknamed “The Crocodile” because of his reported ruthlessness, is seeking a new term in office.
Mnangagwa is said to be more autocratic than his predecessor, Robert Mugabe.
France24 reports that having presided over a collapsing economy marked by hyperinflation, unemployment and corruption allegations, critics have accused Mnangagwa moving to silence dissent and clamp down on the opposition.
Zimbabwean political researcher, Brian Raftopoulos, was quoted as saying, “He is a very repressive, authoritarian figure.”
Mnangagwa was appointed president after a battle to secure the top job ahead of Mugabe’s wife, Grace that he initially looked to have lost.
In 2017, the then 93-year-old President Mugabe dismissed Mnangagwa as vice president, clearing the way for the First Lady, and fearing for his life, Mnangagwa escaped to Mozambique.
His son, who was with him, described Mnangagwa sitting at a bus stop wearing a dusty suit and tattered shoes after a night-time mountain trek as he had no belongings except a briefcase containing dollars, but within weeks, military chiefs launched a brief takeover and Mnangagwa emerged as their chosen successor.
Mugabe’s 37-year rule in Zimbabwe was brought to an end and Mnangagwa reportedly made a triumphant return home, and lawmakers with the ruling ZANU-PF threw their support behind him and he was sworn into office.
After which, Mugabe reportedly said, “I never thought he whom I have nurtured… that one day he would turn against me.”
Mnangagwa won an election the following year with a thin majority of 50.8 percent, and opposition protests were thwarted by the army who killed six people.
Youthful opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, challenged the results of the election in court but lost.
However, Chamisa and Mnangagwa are squaring off for a second bout on August 23.
Mnangagwa’s rise to the presidency came after decades of working closely with Mugabe after Zimbabwe won independence from Britain in 1980, and his supporters credit him for infrastructure projects including building schools, bridges and repairing roads.
Since taking office, he has tried to fashion himself as a down-to-earth politician.
He has reportedly been the target of several apparent assassination attempts including a blast at a 2018 rally that killed two people.
In 2017 he was flown to South Africa for emergency treatment after eating ice cream from a dairy company owned by his arch-rival Grace Mugabe that his allies said was laced with poison.
His nickname can be traced back to his ferocious “Crocodile Gang” guerrilla unit.
After blowing up a train, he was arrested in 1964 and sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to 10 years in prison because of his young age – leaving him a life-long vocal opponent of the death penalty.
Following independence, he was allegedly partially responsible for a brutal crackdown on opposition supporters that claimed thousands of lives of mainly the minority Ndebele ethnic group in what is commonly known as the “Gukurahundi massacre”.
The massacre remains one of the biggest stains on his reputation. Mnangagwa has admitted it was “a bad patch” in Zimbabwe’s history.
Since taking power he has held talks with tribal chiefs in a bid to settle the long-standing grievances.
Two years ago he set up a panel of chiefs to probe the massacres which the Zimbabwe Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace Estimate claimed 20,000 lives.
But the hearings are yet to open, France24 reports.