All the unexplained deaths of Zanu-PF rising stars

• Hebert Chitepo, who was killed in March 1975 by a car bomb in Lusaka. Several investigations have been hampered by lack of evidence, and theories about the motive and perpetrator abound. Former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda instituted an inquiry which made damning findings about infighting in Zanu-PF in exile. The inquiry also fingered Josiah Tongogara, the commander of Zanu's guerrilla army.
   
• Tongogara himself was killed in a car crash in Mozambique in 1979 while on his way to Zimbabwe, six days after the Lancaster House agreement was concluded. His vehicle rammed an army truck parked on the side of the road. The charismatic Zanla commander had clashed with Mugabe over the need for a government of national unity with Joshua Nkomo and speculation was also highlighted by his “ambition, popularity and decisive style". 
  
  
• William Ndangana — a leader of the war of liberation and senior Zanu PF member — died near Nyazura in a car accident on 27 June 1989. He was buried at the National Heroes Acre. Although he had some differences on cabinet appointment with Mugabe on tribal lines - him being Ndau from the east and Mugabe being Korekore from the West, he is said to have been mistakenly killed. Rumours that filtered soon after his death were that the idea was to kill Edgar Tekere who had defected from  ZANU-PF  to form Zimbabwe Unity Movement (ZUM). 
  During that fatal day, Tekere was supposed to travel from Harare to Mutare, but as luck would have it he decided to postpone his journey to evening. Ndangana travelled that afternoon and the army truck saw a Mercedes Benz coming and concluded it was Tekere's and they went for him. As a Manyika he was linked to the opposition ZUM as well. 
  
  
• Sydney “Donald” Malunga — a political activist, civic leader and outspoken Member of Parliament for Bulawayo’s Mpopoma constituency. He died on August 28, 1994 in a car accident. He was buried at the national shrine on September 3 of the same year.
  

• Chris Ushewokunze, a former ministry of industry and commerce, died at the age of 49 after a mysterious car accident at Suri Suri, about 110km from Bulawayo, on the road to Harare, in 1994. He had differed with Mugabe on economic policy.
  
  
• Witness Rukarwa (1995) - He was governor for Mashonaland West who also succumbed to a car crash. His death in a mysterious accident was linked to feuding within  ZANU-PF  and many believed it was the workings of ZANU-PF  and its people.
   
• Zororo Duri was rising rapidly through Zanu-PF ranks as one of the young technocrats seen as poised to take over the party in the mid-1990s. Party bosses had told him not to contest the chair of Manicaland province against Kumbirai Kangai, but he went ahead and won. Appointed ambassador to Cuba, he was killed in a car accident on the Mutare-Harare road in 1996.
  
  
• Edison Zvobgo (2004) - The Harvard trained lawyer and long time ally of Mugabe started criticising Mugabe's autocratic rule in the early 1990's. In 1996, he survived a car accident along Harare-Masvingo road. Both his legs were broken. Soon after the accident he was dropped from cabinet and this accident was considered suspicious by many. He had described the sweeping media laws as, "the most serious assault on our constitutional liberties since independence. He refused to campaign for Mugabe in 2002, but did not endorse Tsvangirai and his MDC. 
  
  
• Peter Pamire (1997) - The businessman's 4x4 Mitsubishi Pajero rolled in Borrowdale suburb of Harare while on his way from the airport and killed him instantly. Allegations were that he was seeing the First Lady Grace behind Mugabe's back. New evidence from the master-minders (CIO) of the assassination point at him being shot and lost control of the vehicle. Instead a metal rod was put on the track of the bullet to suggest that he died of injuries incurred in the accident.
   
• Moven Mahachi was minister of defence at the time of his death in a car accident in 2001 on the Mutare-Nyanga road after attending a Zanu-PF Manicaland meeting as national political commissar. In 2009 Enos Nkala, one of Zanu's founders, claimed that Mahachi was eliminated because of his robust opposition to Zanu-PF's looting of diamonds in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
  
  
• Winston Changara (2007) - The long time bodyguard of Robert Mugabe was accused of meddling in the private affairs of the first family, especially Grace. It all started when Grace refused to go with him on a trip abroad alleging sexual overtures from the assistant commissioner bodyguard. Grace wanted to do away with him because she had seen him to potentially spill the beans about the First Lady. He was demoted and never saw the first family again and while serving elsewhere in the police force he was involved in a car accident. He died a bitter man. 

• Paul Armstrong Gunda, a brigadier general and hero of the liberation war, died after his car allegedly collided with a train on the Harare-Marondera road in 2007. 
  

• Eliot Manyika, former youth minister, died in a road accident on the Zvishavane-Mbalabala road in 2008. In his capacity as national commissar he was travelling from Mutare to Gwanda on a Zanu-PF restructuring mission that could have upset the leadership ambitions of some top party officials.
  
  Manyika's family asked police to investigate, claiming that his injuries were inconsistent with a road accident. A close relative also claimed that he had received anonymous death threats. A tyre from his official Mercedes-Benz was sent to South Africa for forensic analysis, but the inquest found his death was consistent with a traffic accident.
   
• Border Gezi was killed when his car careered out of control after it had a blow-out on the Harare-Masvingo road. Gezi was travelling to Masvingo to address party supporters and reshuffle the political leadership in the province. Some theorists hold that he had decided to speak out against the seizure of white-owned farms. It is also believed that the Zanu-PF old guard was unhappy with his meteoric rise through the party's ranks.
   
• Solomon Mujuru  died, allegedly in a fire, at his farm in Beatrice in 2011. Many politically neutral Zimbabweans, and even some Zanu-PF supporters, believe Mujuru was murdered, and the speculation became so intense that his widow, Vice-President Joice Mujuru, had to appeal for calm. His family's request to have his remains exhumed and re-examined in a second postmortem by a South African pathologist were turned down. In his report,  the director of Zimbabwe's forensic science laboratory, Birthwell Mutandiro, said there were indications that Mujuru had died before the fire spread to the room in which his remains were found. (various sources)