‘Zimbabwe military takeover was legal’
HARARE: A Zimbabwean High Court judge has ruled that the military action leading to Robert Mugabe’s resignation was legal, a key decision as the military has sought to show that its actions were not a coup.
Judge George Chiweshe on Friday ruled that the military’s actions “in intervening to stop the takeover” of Mugabe’s constitutional functions “by those around him are constitutional and lawful.”
The military stepped in two weeks ago after Mugabe’s firing of deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa amid fears that Mugabe’s unpopular wife was positioning herself to take power.
The judge said the military’s actions ensured that non-elected individuals do not exercise executive functions, an apparent reference to then-first lady Grace Mugabe.
Separately, the judge said Mugabe’s firing of Mnangagwa as vice president was illegal. Mnangagwa was sworn in as president on Friday in a whirlwind reversal of fortunes.
The judge’s decisions were quickly criticized both by legal and rights experts and by close allies of Mugabe and his wife.
“If these breathtaking High Court Orders granted in Harare yesterday represent what is being peddled as a ‘new path,’ then please pray for Zimbabwe,” tweeted minister of higher education Jonathan Moyo, the most vocal of the Mugabes’ allies.
The southern Africa director for Human Rights Watch, Dewa Mavhinga, called the rulings “incredible” and said on Twitter: “Strange, captured judiciary?”