power’.12  The  resignation  was  greeted  with  another  round  of  national  celebrations.    On  the  24th   November  Emerson  Mnangagwa  was  inaugurated  as  Zimbabwe’s  new  President.                 The  irony  of  these  developments  is  that  both  factions  in  this  internecine  struggle  within  Zanu  PF   have  been  at  pains  to  deploy  the  language  of  constitutionalism,  while  in  the  past  they  have  all   worked  to  undermine  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  Zimbabwean  citizenry.  The  military  have  been   central  to  Mugabe’s  authoritarian  rule,  playing  a  key  role  in  preventing  a  constitutional  change  of   government  through  elections  for  most  of  the  2000s.  It  has  carried  out  mass  violations  of  human   rights  and  been  responsible  for  mass  atrocities  such  as  the  Gukurahundi  massacres  in  the  mid   1980s.  The  liberation  war  legacy  and  the  role  of  the  war  veterans  have  been  at  the  heart  of  Zanu   PF’s  legitimising  national  discourse  throughout  the  post-­‐colonial  period,  even  if  there  have  been   ongoing  internal  conflicts  between  the  veterans  and  the  political  leadership.13  Since  the  emergence   of  the  political  opposition  in  the  2000s,  the  war  veterans  have  remained  central  in  the  party’s   coercive  structures,14  while  military  personnel  have  been  systematically  placed  in  key  positions  in   the  media,  electoral  structures,  the  judiciary  and  the  legislature.15  By  the  mid  2000s,  it  was   apparent  that  the  Joint  Operations  Command,  controlled  by  Mugabe  and  the  security  chiefs  (and  a   legacy  from  the  Rhodesian  regime)  which  had  originally  operated  ‘under  the  tacit  management  of   the  party’,  had  become  ‘an  alternative  to  the  state,  and  was,  in  effect,  a  parallel  government.’16   Moreover,  the  military  have  benefitted  greatly  from  the  patronage  network  in  Zanu  PF,  occupying   key  areas  in  agriculture,  mining  and  the  parastatal  sector.17         The  Generals  have  for  a  long  time  made  it  clear  that  they  are  the  arbiters  of  rule  in  Zimbabwean   politics.  The  long  held  perception  that,  despite  the  defining  role  of  the  military  in  Zanu  PF  and  state   politics,  Mugabe  remained  in  firm  control  of  the  armed  forces,  has  been  decisively  challenged.   Although  it  was  clear  that  for  much  of  the  post-­‐colonial  period,  Mugabe  retained  control  of  the   military  elites  though  a  combination  of  his  position  as  Commander  in  Chief,  his  position  at  the   pinnacle  of  the  nationalist  hierarchy,  the  use  of  patronage  and  the  commitment  of  key  sections  of   the  military  to  Zanu  PF,18  this  political  control  was  eventually  challenged  once  it  was  clear  that  the   future  of  key  sections  of  the  military  elite  was  under  threat.  In  the  present  context  the  dominance   of  the  military  in  Zimbabwean  politics  is  clearer  and  more  decisive  than  ever.  This  is  evidenced  by   the  appointment  of  military  personnel  to  key  positions  in  Government  by  President  Mnangagwa.   On  the  18  December,  the  retired  Air  Chief  Marshall  Perence  Shiri  was  appointed  to  the  post  of   Minister  of  Lands,  Agriculture  and  Rural  Development,  the  retired  Lt.  General  Sibusiso  Moyo  to  the   Minster  of  Foreign  Affairs,  while  the  retired  Major  General  Engelbert  Rugeje  became  Zanu  PF’s   Political  Commissar.  Most  significantly,  the  retired  Commander  of  the  Defence  Forces,  Constantino                                                                                                               12  President  Mugabe  Letter  of  Resignation  21  November  2017.    N.Kriger,  Guerrilla  Veterans  in  Post-­‐War  Zimbabwe-­‐  Symbolic  and  Violent  Politics  1980-­‐1987.  Cambridge,   Cambridge  University  Press,  2003.   14  P.Sorensen,  Zimbabwe’s  Security  Services  -­‐  Views  from  the  Inside.  RUSI  Journal,  August/September  2010,   Vol  155  Mo  4,  pp.  58-­‐68.     15  Zimbabwe  Democracy  Institute  Report,  Zimbabwe  Transition  in  a  Muddy  Terrain,  Harare,  2017   16  K.  Chitiyo,  The  Case  for  Security  Sector  Reform  in  Zimbabwe.  Royal  United  Services  Institute,  Occasional   Paper,  London,  2009,  p8.   17  G.Moyo,  The  Curse  of  Military  Commercialism  in  State  Enterprises  and  Parastatals  in  Zimbabwe,  Journal  of   Southern  African  Studies,  2016,  42,2,  pp.  351-­‐364,     18  M-­‐B  Tendi,  Ideology,  the  Civilian  Authority  and  the  Zimbabwe  Military,  Journal  of  Southern  African  Studies,   39,  4,  2015,  pp.  829-­‐843.   13   6