LONDON - Every family wedding has one: the relative who flew in from far away, wore the good suit, sat towards the back and somehow missed the group photograph. At the coronation of King Charles III on Saturday, that relative was President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mnangagwa was among the foreign leaders at Westminster Abbey, but he was not part of the group of heads of state and government who had a photo opportunity with the new King. ZANU-PF has now explained why.
“We are not a member of the Commonwealth, the President is determined that we should be readmitted into the group of nations,” the party’s spokesperson, Chris Mutsvangwa, said on Monday, speaking on the sidelines of the burial of national hero Abraham Kabasa in Harare, according to ZimEye. “But as for Zimbabwe, we did not have the right because we are not yet a member of the grouping. When we become a member, we would be part of those who will be close to the king.”
The back row
The seating attracted as much comment as the photograph. NewZimbabwe.com reported that social media users mocked Mnangagwa for being unrecognisable in a corner seat at the back, while leaders such as King Mswati III of eSwatini sat nearer the front.
A Twitter account, which NewZimbabwe.com described as one of many linked to presidential spokesperson George Charamba, pushed back. “To assist, protocol puts Monarchs ahead of Presidents and Prime Ministers, which is why King Mswati and other Royalties sat in the front row, well ahead of several leaders, including the President of Zimbabwe,” the Tinoedza Zvimwe account wrote. It added that leaders were seated in relation to their countries’ membership of the Commonwealth, of which the King is head, and that the President’s seat “was thus appropriate”.
That is, as far as it goes, correct. Zimbabwe applied to rejoin the Commonwealth in 2018, NewZimbabwe.com noted, in a process that has dragged on without conclusion.
A busy diary
Mnangagwa’s aides prefer to dwell on the meetings. According to ZimEye, while other African leaders met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Mnangagwa met Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s Minister for Africa. He also paid a courtesy call on Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland at Marlborough House, where, she said, they discussed Zimbabwe’s application to rejoin and reaffirmed the commitment to the values of the Commonwealth.
He also met Tony Blair, NewZimbabwe.com reported. That is a notable change of heart for a leader who once told the Financial Times: “The guy we didn’t like is that young man, Tony Blair. I don’t know where he is now.” Charamba said Blair was being engaged to help remove sanctions he had helped impose.
Mutsvangwa, for his part, was sentimental about the monarch. “When he was still a prince, he lowered the Union Jack (British flag) and raised the Zimbabwean flag after we had won the liberation struggle in 1980,” he said. “This shows that the engagement between Harare and London is going in a good direction.”
Not everyone was charmed
The Guardian, surveying African reaction to the coronation, reported that in Zimbabwe “some alarm was expressed at the presence of Emmerson Mnangagwa”. It quoted the trade unionist and activist Obert Masaraure: “We are concerned when countries which claim to be champions of democracy choose to entertain despots like Mnangagwa.”
The picture, as drawn
The cartoons accompanying this report have their own theories. One shows the ruling party’s online defenders, the so-called Varakashi, blaming the photographer. Another imagines the trip in two panels, a grand departure and an early return.
Those are jokes. The official explanation is less funny but more revealing. Zimbabwe was invited to the coronation but not to the photograph, and the reason, by the ruling party’s own account, is that it is still waiting to be readmitted to the club. Until it is, the President will have to make do with the seat at the back and the view of other people’s hats.
