The recent secret visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to his Zimbabwean counterpart, Emmerson Mnangagwa, on Sunday continues to raise more questions.
Ramaphosa touched down on Sunday and visited President Mnangagwa's Precabe farm in Kwekwe, where the two leaders engaged in a series of meetings.
The visit was conspicuous by the absence of President Mnangagwa's two deputies, Kembo Mohadi and Constantino Chiwenga, despite the South African Presidency issuing a statement saying the visit was "a working visit to the Republic of Zimbabwe for an engagement with his Zimbabwean counterpart, HE President Emmerson Mnangagwa, to discuss issues of mutual and bilateral interests."
South Africa's Democratic Alliance (DA) leader, Geordin Hill-Lewis, in a curt reaction to Ramaphosa's visit, said: "This is dodgy."
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Raising more eyebrows was the presence of ZANU PF businessmen, Wicknell Chivayo, Kudakwashe Tagwirei and Paul Tungwarara who attended the meetings that Presidents Mnangagwa and Ramaphosa held.
Political analyst Jealousy Mawarire and late former President Robert Mugabe's spokesperson, said the secret visit shows a compromise of the two countries' presidencies.
"The visit by President Cyril Ramaphosa to Zimbabwe yesterday revealed unmitigated decadence in the top offices in both Zimbabwe and South Africa.
"That we are now getting conflicting messages on whether it was 'a working visit' or 'private visit', as Zimbabwean officials call it, doesn't help matters either.
"What was on display was not just a display of the levels to which the two men occupying the presidency in both countries have gone to tolerate criminality around them, it went as far as making the two one with the malaise that characterises the individuals they chose to hobnob with and parade to the whole world to see," said Mawarire.
Ramaphosa's visit comes on the back of continued protests in his country against illegal foreign nationals who continue to trek to South Africa seeking greener economic pastures.
Anti-migrant vigilante groups accuse these foreign nationals of fuelling criminal activities and congesting their public services.
Mawarire said the visit was a political miscalculation by Ramaphosa given the unfolding events in South Africa.
"It is the kind of political misjudgement that you don't normally associate with a seasoned politician like President Ramaphosa.
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"Despite what is happening in South Africa, about xenophobic attacks, the South African Presidency has always been a breath of fresh air in Africa.
"We have been witnessing democracy at play in South Africa with President Ramaphosa showing massive displays of top-notch political judgement and behaviour, even under extreme provocation, but never on any day did we prepare for the kind of political recklessness around the SA Presidency like we witnessed yesterday," he said.
