At the same time, the angry war veterans appeared to back down on their hardline stance against President Robert Mugabe, surprisingly saying he was still their patron despite their nasty fallout with him last year.

Speaking at a press conference in Harare yesterday, former Cabinet minister and chairperson of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) Christopher Mutsvangwa claimed that the Generation 40 (G40) faction had come up a cropper against Mnangagwa because “he is too big a fish” to be expelled from Zanu PF by them.

“They create their own stories and they peddle them as if it is fact. Look, we are being hawked to every political party and political leader. When we were expelled, me and my friends (other war vets) were said kuti tiri vanhu vaMnangagwa (that we were Mnangagwa’s allies).

“It’s a year since we were expelled and Mnangagwa is still in Zanu PF. They are failing to expel him the way they did to Teurai (Joice Mujuru) . . . his position is strong there. He is not a push over, we assume.

“The accusation by G40 was we were pushing for Mnangagwa to take over. We cannot look for another political home, our home is where we came from (Zanu PF) . . . but only if it changes and respects the will of the people.

“We are very happy with where we are because where we are that’s where people are,” the straight-talking Mutsvangwa said.

Mnangagwa has been under the cosh in Zanu PF ever since Mujuru was hounded out of the warring ruling party in December 2014, and has on many occasions appeared to be on his way out of the former liberation movement as the marauding G40 have pummelled him and his supporters mercilessly and unrelentingly from all angles.

At the same time, Mutsvangwa and the larger section of war veterans have been making loud calls for the VP to take over the reins immediately from Mugabe, at both party and government levels.

The former freedom fighters have also warned previously that blood could be shed in the country if the Midlands godfather does not succeed the nonagenarian.

Early this month, a former Cabinet minister and liberation struggle stalwart, Rugare Gumbo — who worked with both Mugabe and Mnangagwa for many decades, before and after Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980 — told the Daily News’ sister paper, the Daily News On Sunday, that it would be foolish to assume that the nonagenarian had shut the door on his deputy succeeding him.

He also said it could not be ruled out that Mnangagwa himself was “playing a game of hide-and-seek” with Mugabe, adding that the two men had a strong bond and long-standing relationship which was “only fully understood by them”.

Gumbo — who was expelled from Zanu PF in 2014 with many other ruling party bigwigs on untested allegations of plotting to assassinate and topple the nonagenarian from power — said the two men were “sizing and testing each other up”.