Zimbabwe’s Mnangagwa: key dates

Harare, Zimbabwe | AFP | Emmerson Mnangagwa, who will be inaugurated on Friday as Zimbabwe’s next president, is a political veteran and party hardliner who for decades worked closely with Robert Mugabe.

Here are key dates in his career:

– September 15, 1942: Born in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia but moves as a teenager with his family to Zambia, known at the time as Northern Rhodesia

– 1960s: Joins the struggle for independence after military training in China and Egypt but is arrested and spends 10 years in prison

– 1980: After Zimbabwe wins independence, appointed security minister in Robert Mugabe’s first post-independence government. In this position, he oversees a crackdown on suspected opposition dissidents that leaves thousands dead

– 1983: Directs a brutal crackdown on opposition supporters in the provinces of Matabeleland and Midlands, which leaves thousands dead

– 2000: As justice minister, a post he has held since 1989, he announces moves to seize white-owned farms

– December 2004: Sidelined for the post of vice president when Mugabe appoints a rival

– 2008: After Mugabe loses the first round of presidential elections, Mnangagwa allegedly supervises the wave of violence and intimidation that forces the opposition to withdraw from the run-off vote

– December 10, 2014: Is named vice president and deputy head of the ZANU-PF, putting him in pole position to one day succeed Mugabe

– November 6, 2017: Mugabe sacks Mnangagwa on grounds of disloyalty in a dispute over succession, triggering the country’s worst political crisis since independence. Two days later he flees the country

– November 22, 2017: Returns triumphantly after Mugabe’s shock resignation to eventually take over as president, tells crowds they are witnessing “unfolding full democracy”