While stepping down, Mugabe cried, lamented aides’ betrayal

HARARE: Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe cried and lamented “betrayal by his lieutenants” when he agreed to step down last week under pressure from the military and his party after 37 years in power, the Standard newspaper said in its Sunday edition.

President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe loyalist, was sworn in on Friday and attention is focused on whether he will name a broad-based government or select figures from Mugabe’s era.

The newspaper quoted sources within Mugabe’s inner circle as saying the devout Catholic held a rosary as he told his close associates and a team of negotiators at his Blue House mansion in Harare that he was resigning. He announced the decision as parliament heard a motion to impeach him.

“He looked down and said ‘people were chameleons’,” one of the sources was quoted as saying.

The state-owned Sunday Mail quoted Father Fidelis Mukonori, a Jesuit priest who is a close Mugabe friend and mediated his resignation with the military, as saying Mugabe’s face “just glowed” after he signed the resignation letter.

“So we are not talking about a bitter man. I told him that it was good for him to see someone running the country...,” Mukonori told the Sunday Mail.

MUGABE TO RECEIVE ‘NOT LESS THAN $10M’

Mugabe and his wife Grace Mugabe will receive millions of dollars as part of a deal negotiated before the resignation of the ageing autocrat last week.

A senior official of ruling party ZANU-PF with direct knowledge of the agreement said that the total would not be less than $10 million, reported The Guardian.

Mugabe would receive a “cash payment of $5m” immediately, with more paid in coming months. His $150,000 salary will also be paid until his death.