President Emmerson Mnangagwa is mulling making further changes to his cabinet after a mini-reshuffle on Friday, The Standard reports. The second reshuffle will see some ministers being dropped from the cabinet while others will be reassigned.
Last Friday’s mini-reshuffle was meant to pacify Vice President Chiwenga’s supporters as well as to deal with growing concerns in the ruling party that the president had concentrated power in his home province, the Midlands. The publication quotes a party insider as saying:
The changes are motivated by the president’s desire to consolidate power and do tribal balancing more than performance.
There are a lot of political reasons why three people from Mashonaland East, Chiwenga’s home province were appointed.
Another party insider told The Standard that Mnangagwa has realised that most of the people he had been appointing are from the Midlands and he now wants to decentralise power in preparation for the 2023 elections.
Last week’s reshuffle saw Kazembe Kazembe being appointed as the new Home Affairs minister to replace Cain Mathema, who was moved to the Primary and Secondary Education portfolio, among several other changes.