Harare – The expulsion of former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa from both the ruling Zanu-PF party and government “was linked to President Robert Mugabe‘s fast deteriorating health”, New Zimbabwe.com reported on Friday.

Mugabe, 93, fired Munangagwa, the man who for so long looked like he would succeed the longtime Zimbabwe president.

“It had become evident that his conduct in the discharge of his duties had become inconsistent with his official responsibilities,” Information Minister Simon Khaya Moyo told a press briefing on Monday as he announced Mnangagwa’s dismissal.

“The vice president has consistently and persistently exhibited the traits of disloyalty, disrespect, deceitfulness and unreliability.”

Stumbling block

This came after Mugabe – and particularly his wife Grace – had been stepping up their verbal attacks on Mnangagwa, 75, for weeks.

Security sources, New Zimbabwe.com said, claimed that Grace’s demands for Mnangagwa’s sacking were motivated by concern over her husband’s failing health.

Mugabe, 93, was “now virtually unable to walk without assistance, always needing the support of his wife, Grace, and the phalanx of bodyguards he travels with”, the report said.

The report quoted leaked details as saying that Mugabe’s doctors had informed Grace that Mugabe was “unlikely to live for too long”.

Meanwhile, critics maintained that the former vice president had become a “stumbling block to First Lady’s ambitions to succeed her husband”.