Zimbabwe takes legal steps to oust Mugabe
Party members plan march to back military, as leader’s 37-year rule vanishes rapidly
HARARE, ZIMBABWE— Zimbabwe’s governing party moved Friday to expel President Robert Mugabe from its ranks, taking the first step in legally ousting the 93-year-old leader following a military intervention two days earlier.
A majority of the leaders of the party, ZANU-PF, recommended Mugabe’s expulsion from the very organization that he had controlled with an iron grip since independence in1980, according to ZBC, the state broadcaster.
Military officers have insisted that their takeover was not a coup, but the party’s leaders appeared Friday to be providing political cover for the intervention. The party’s central committee, parliament and Mugabe’s cabinet could now take steps to officially end his presidency, if he does not resign.
The military arrested Mugabe early Wednesday, effectively ending his 37-year rule, although it allowed him to appear in public Friday to address a university graduation.
Later Friday, party members endorsed the military’s efforts to stabi- lize the economy and defuse political instability. They echoed military commanders in arguing that the intervention was aimed at rooting out a cabal of corrupt interlopers who had clouded Mugabe’s judgment and his ability to govern.
“Many of us had watched with pain as the party and government were being reduced to the personal prop- erty of a few infiltrators with traitorous histories and questionable commitment to the people,” party leaders said in a resolution.
The resolution recommended that Mugabe be removed for taking the advice of “counter-revolutionaries and agents of neo-imperialism”; for mistreating his vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom Mugabe abruptly dismissed last week; and for encouraging “factionalism.” It urged the “immediate and unconditional reinstatement” of Mnangagwa, who appears poised to succeed Mugabe, at least until national elections scheduled for next year. Party members also moved to schedule a march for Saturday in support of the military.
On Friday, Mugabe was freed — if only temporarily — to address a university graduation ceremony. It was his first public appearance since the military placed him under house arrest.
Clad in a blue academic gown, the 93-year-old leader earlier joined academics on a red carpet and sat in a high-backed chair in front of several thousand students and guests, a routine he has conducted for many years as the official chancellor of Zimbabwe’s universities.
The appearance suggested that Mugabe was no longer under military detention, and raised questions about whether the generals who staged a coup on Tuesday night were backing away from a process that would lead to Mugabe’s dismissal.
On Friday morning, the military released a statement saying that “significant progress” has been made in its efforts to apprehend members of Mugabe’s government.
But negotiations with Mugabe were still ongoing, it added, without explaining if commanders were seeking Mugabe’s ouster or a different kind of negotiated settlement.
That Mugabe was permitted to go to the Zimbabwe Open University event possibly reflected a degree of respect by the military for the president, a former rebel leader who took power after independence from white minority rule in 1980.