Mugabe’s party sets impeachment ball rolling
ZANU-PF removes 93-year-old as its leader • Beneath euphoria, army control elicits concern
HARARE (Reuters) – Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU-PF party on Monday officially notified President Robert Mugabe of his removal as party president and will on Tuesday table a motion to impeach him after a deadline it set for his resignation passed, spokesman Simon Moyo said.
Mugabe, 93, has led the party since 1977 and been in power for 37 years. The party also fired his wife, Grace, capping a dramatic week after the military seized power on Wednesday.
Impeachment could see Mugabe kicked out by a parliamentary vote in less than a day and would represent an ignominious end to the career of the “Grand Old Man” of African politics, who was once lauded across the continent as an anti-colonial hero.
A draft impeachment motion called Mugabe a “source of instability” who has shown disrespect for the rule of law and is to blame for the unprecedented economic tailspin over the past 15 years.
On paper, the process is relatively long-winded, involving a joint sitting of the Senate and National Assembly, then a nine-member committee of senators, and then another joint sitting to confirm his dismissal with a two-thirds majority.
However, constitutional experts said ZANU-PF had the numbers and could push it through in as little as 24 hours.
“They can fast-track it. It can be done in a matter of a day,” said John Makamure, executive director of the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust, an NGO that works with the parliament in Harare.
Mugabe’s demise, now almost inevitable, is likely to send shock waves across Africa, where a number of entrenched strongmen, from Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step aside.
Mugabe was once admired, even in the West, as the “Thinking Man’s Guerrilla,” a world away from his image in his later years as the stereotypical African dictator proudly declaring he held a “degree in violence.”
As the economy crumbled and opposition to his rule grew in the late 1990s, Mugabe tightened his grip on the country, seizing white-owned farms, unleashing security forces to crush dissent and speaking of ruling until he was 100.
ZANU-PF’s action follows a weekend of high drama in Harare, culminating in reports that Mugabe had agreed on Sunday to stand down – only for him to dash the hopes of millions of his countrymen in a bizarre and rambling national address.
Flanked by the generals who sent in tanks and troops last week to seize the state broadcaster, Mugabe spoke of the need for national unity and farming reform, but made no mention of his fate, leaving the nation of 16 million people dumbstruck.
“I am baffled. It’s not just me, it’s the whole nation,” shocked opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai told Reuters. “He’s playing a game.”
Two senior government sources told Reuters that Mugabe had agreed on Sunday to step aside. CNN said on Monday his resignation letter had been drawn up, with terms that included immunity for him and his hot-headed and unpopular 52-year-old wife Grace.
It was her grab for power via the purging of former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa this month that forced the army to send in the troops.
Two other political sources told Reuters on Monday that Mugabe had indeed agreed to resign, but ZANU-PF did not want him to quit in front of the military, an act that would have made its mid-week intervention look like a coup.
“It would have looked extremely bad if he had resigned in front of those generals. It would have created a huge amount of mess,” one senior source within ZANU-PF said.
Another political source said the speech was meant to “sanitize” the military’s action, which has paved the way for Mnangagwa, a former security chief known as The Crocodile, to take over.
Moments after Mugabe’s address, war veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa, who has spearheaded an 18-month campaign to unseat Zimbabwe’s only leader, called for protests suggesting a potential popular uprising if Mugabe refused to go.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of Harare to celebrate Mugabe’s expected downfall and hail a new era for their country, whose economy has imploded under the weight of economic mismanagement, including 500 billion percent hyperinflation in 2008.
An estimated 3 million Zimbabweans emigrated to neighboring South Africa in search of a better life.
The huge crowds in Harare have given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army’s intervention, backing its assertion that it was merely implementing a constitutional transfer of power rather than an old-style coup, which would have risked a diplomatic backlash.
Behind the euphoria, some Zimbabweans have misgiving, not least because of the prominent role played by the military in removing Mugabe.
“The real danger of the current situation is that, having gotten their new preferred candidate into State House, the military will want to keep him or her there, no matter what the electorate wills,” former education minister David Coltart said.
Others worry about Mnangagwa’s past, particularly as state security chief in the early 1980s, when an estimated 20,000 people were killed in the so-called Gukurahundi crackdown by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland.
He has denied any wrong-doing, but critics say Zimbabwe risks swapping one army-backed autocrat for another.