Intriguingly Mnangagwa would be in line (alongside the two Vice-Presidents the elderly Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika) to succeed Mugabe if the leader quit before the next elections...
More than once his own strategy in the past month has been at variance with his own ministers such as Vice-President Joseph Msika or Home Affairs Minister Dumiso Dabengwa who have been publicly countermanded by the President...
The 77-year-old Vice-President Joseph Msika is also improbably eyeing the presidency making loud loyalist comments about the need to redistribute land without compensation and about how foreigners must stop meddling in Zimbabwean politics...
When Mugabe and his two deputies Simon Muzenda and Joseph Msika saw that ZANU-PF's constitutional campaign was turning into a referendum on the government's performance they belatedly tried to tie it to the redistribution of land so that voting for the ZANU-PF-approved draft constitution would be a vote for redistributing the mainly white-held commercial farms but voting 'No' would be seen as a vote back to the 'neo-colonial' Lancaster House constitution of 1980 with its special representation for whites...
Joseph Msika (77) moved up from National Chairman to Co-Vice-President replacing the late Joshua Nkomo...
Nkomo's logical successor would be Joseph Wilfred Msika Nkomo's number two in the old ZAPU and ranked third in ZANU-PF after Mugabe and Vice-President Muzenda...
Party protocol states clearly that the succession should pass to Nkomo's number two Joseph Msika who ranks number four in the united ZANU-PF...
There are also disagreements between Kumbirai Kangai' s Lands and Agriculture Ministry and the Land Committee headed by Joseph Msika Chairman of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union- PatrioticFront...
He told Mugabe's top lieutenants including Party Chairman Joseph Msika and Legal Secretary Eddison Zvobgo to pipe down...
He was detained at Gona Kudzingwa after demonstrating against British Prime Minister Harold Wilson where he met the disciples of ZAPU luminaries such as Joshua Nkomo Joseph Msika and the late Lazarus Nkala...
