Despite warnings to avoid using social media, politicians in Zimbabwe are increasingly engaging with one another across several platforms including Facebook and Twitter.

President Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF party discouraged members from using social media to attack each other and the police commissioner expressed reservations over usage and what he believed to be the ultimate abuse of social media.

But that has not deterred the country's high profile politicians from taking to Twitter to express their views and vent frustration.

Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) yesterday marked a return to Twitter, a platform from which he has been absent for the past few years.

"In the middle of the starvation in Masvingo Province, Mugabe wants to go there next week & hold a $1 million birthday bash. What an insult," Tsvangirai tweeted last night.

However, one of his followers queried him: "...you guys seem to go into hibernation after elections. A social media footprint is not enough".

He responded that he had been active on other social media platforms such as Facebook while his party had been undertaking work at the grassroots level. Tsvangirai has 23 900 followers for his Twitter handle, @mrtsvangirai.

Social media enthusiast and commentator, Ranga Mberi, has commented via Twitter: "Oh look! First tweet on this account in two years. Munhu wese kuTwitta (Everyone now on Twitter)."

The infighting in Mugabe's Zanu PF party to replace the ageing leader is also playing out on Twitter, where former information minister, Jonathan Moyo, has been vocal.

Moyo is reportedly part of the G40 faction in Zanu PF that is opposed to Vive President Emmerson Mnangagwa's alleged bid to take over from Mugabe.

Despite allegedly being reprimanded and ordered to stop using social media to express his grievances with other Zanu PF members, Moyo has been vociferous on Twitter.

"I said Zanu PF had two factions as far back as one cares to remember & one remains after Mujuru's was ejected!," he said on Twitter yesterday.

Other Zimbabwean politicians who have been active on Twitter of late include Zanu PF National Political Commissar, Saviour Kasukuwere, as well as parliamentarian, Justice Major Wadyajena .

Wadyajena responded to one of Moyo's tweets as follows: "Learn 2accept that ppl (people) have a democratic right 2hold different opinion from u. U aint a God. So please ZIP up!"