Oppah Muchinguri


Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri is a Zimbabwean politician, who is the current Minister of Defence in the Cabinet of Zimbabwe. She has also served as Minister of Higher Education and Minister of Women's Affairs. Muchinguri ran as the ZANU-PF candidate for Mutasa Central constituency in the March 2008 parliamentary election, but was defeated by Trevor Saruwaka, a candidate of the Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai. According to official results, Muchinguri received 4,764 votes against 9,228 votes for Saruwaka.
The Herald reported on January 3, 2009, that Muchinguri had been dismissed from the Cabinet earlier in the week, along with 11 other ministers, because she no longer held any seat in Parliament.
She was re-appointed to cabinet in 2014 following the dismissal of former Vice-President Joice Mujuru and several of her allies, in December 2014. In 2015 she was moved to the Ministry of Environment, Water and Climate in a cabinet reshuffle. On November 27, 2017, Mugabe's successor Emmerson Mnangagwa dissolved the cabinet
She was appointed as the Minister of Environment, Water and Climate again on 30 November 2017. She was later appointed Minister of Defense in September 2018.
In 2020 she claimed that the COVID-19 pandemic was God's punishment on the countries that "suffocate" Zimbabwe by sanctions.