MNANGAGWA EVACUATED FROM HWANGE ON INTELLIGENCE REPORTS OF PLANNED ATTACK

Part of the crowd waiting to be addressed by President Mnangagwa in Hwange earlier today

President Emmerson Mnangagwa abandoned plans to address a rally in Hwange  a few minutes ago, where he was scheduled to speak to supporters who had already filled the stadium. The president was spirited back to Harare without going to the rally after people currently being questioned over the White City explosion revealed that there were also plans to get to him at Hwange.

The emergency evacuation of the president puts pressure on military intelligence to quickly lock down the investigation and neutralise the threat hanging over the heads of the President and inner circle.

When the information was relayed, attempts were made first to establish what advance security measures had taken place at the stadium in Hwange, with the full intention of letting the president proceed to address the thousands who were waiting for him.

However, we are informed that when Vice President Chiwenga was told that the only measure put in place had been to get the police to supervise the set up, he asked how the people who had now gathered had been vetted as they entered the stadium. The answer he got convinced him that it was not prudent for the president to proceed out of an abundance of caution.

A Maenzanise, one of the people detained and a member of the Zimbabwe intelligence, is being said to be a confirmed G40 sympathiser within the system, but Jonathan Moyo, responding from his exile hideout, told us:

"I don't know who the fellow is. No idea."

Mnangagwa was responsible for the security of Mugabe during and after the liberation war and is well-versed in neutralising threats as well as gathering intelligence. He revealed a couple of years back that when Mugabe asked Smith to come and see him at his Mt Pleasent home just after the elections, he put snipers in the shrubs, just in case!

The evacuation of the president betrays the fact that the investigators as well as military intelligence have not quite yet wrapped their heads around this threat.

VP Chiwenga, who offered protection to other candidates in this year's election, is understood to have been briefed that the White City explosion is plausibly the opening shot in a sustained campaign designed to ensure that the election does not take place or is so riddled with violence that it basically sinks the prospects of a new ZANU PF gaining traction with the international community.

There are, sources tell us, credible indications that this violence is also planned to spread to opposition gatherings.

Naturally, if an explosion was to take place at an MDC Alliance rally, not even God himself and all the angels of heaven would be able to convince the world that ZANU PF had nothing to do with it.

One of Mnangagwa's ministers has been tasked with urgently briefing the opposition parties about the threats around this and was supposed to have held meetings with the main parties yesterday. But we understand that the Nelson Chamisa MDC-Alliance has refused flat out to entertain him.

"They told him 'those are internal squabbles that will not affect us in any way.' They think it is a ploy to give the impression to the public that they are working in cahoots with ED and Chiwenga."