On Sunday, Mnangagwa was named as president of the ruling ZANU-PF party in place of Mugabe, putting him one step away from the top job with Mugabe told to resign or be forced from office.
Nicknamed "Ngwena" (The Crocodile) because of his fearsome power and ruthlessness, Mnangagwa (75) appeared to have been outfoxed by Mugabe's wife Grace.
The first lady, who is 41 years younger than her husband, lobbied the veteran head of state to ditch his long-serving lieutenant to further her own political ambitions.
But Mnangagwa has close ties with the military, which was deeply opposed to Grace, and the generals stepped in to take power on Tuesday.
It was the climax of a long feud between Grace and Mugabe's then deputy to be in pole position to replace the ailing leader when he died or retired.
Mnangagwa -- a long-time party loyalist and hardliner who could prove as authoritarian as Mugabe -- initially fled to South Africa after his sacking.
But the dramatic seizure of power by the military returned him to centre-stage.
"The army are in negotiations with Mugabe and Mnangagwa," Derek Matyszak, an analyst at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies, told AFP.
"The easiest way to present a veneer of legality is that Mugabe reappoints Mnangagwa as vice president, briefly -- Mugabe then retires."
Under Zimbabwe's constitution, the first of the two vice presidents would automatically become acting president for 90 days when the president goes .
In the early days after independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe made Mnangagwa, who was then a young trainee lawyer, minister for national security.
Since then Mnangagwa has occupied a host of cabinet positions -- but relations between him and his political mentor have not always been cosy, and the younger man is no stranger to presidential purges.
In 2004 he lost his post as the secretary for administration in the ruling ZANU-PF party after being accused of openly angling for the post of vice president.
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