HARARE — Sanctioned businessman and presidential aspirant Kudakwashe Tagwirei paid a staggering $1.8 million at a charity auction in Harare on Thursday for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s first car – an Aston 1300 the president drove as a law student at the University of Zambia.
Tagwirei immediately donated it back to the ED-University of Zambia Scholarship Trust, which supports Zimbabwean students at the institution.
The auction, which sold Mnangagwa memorabilia, raised over $2.5 million in total.
Tagwirei, who is under sanctions from both the United States and the United Kingdom, built a multibillion-dollar business empire on state contracts awarded without competitive tender. He also held a fuel-sector partnership with Singapore’s Trafigura until sanctions ended the arrangement.
Washington has accused Tagwirei and other Zimbabwean elites of derailing economic development through corruption, saying he leveraged relationships with senior officials to secure state contracts and preferential access to hard currency while supplying those same officials with luxury goods including expensive vehicles.
The businessman was recently elevated to Zanu PF’s central committee amid reports that he harbours presidential ambitions.
His advisers believe he stands to be the primary beneficiary of planned constitutional amendments that would scrap the requirement for a president to win a popular vote, replacing it with a vote by MPs sitting as an electoral college.
The amendments would also strip the vice president of the automatic right to assume the presidency if the incumbent dies, is incapacitated or resigns, directing parliament instead to elect a successor.
Tagwirei has spent millions buying vehicles for Zanu PF central committee members, politburo members and MPs. Legal analysts say the strategy appears designed to position him as the natural successor should Mnangagwa leave power as the presidency goes to the highest bidder.
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