B7 Zimbabwe’s next leader prepares to take power
HARARE : Zimbabwe’s incoming president Emmerson Mnangagwa was preparing on Thursday to take power after the shock resignation of Robert Mugabe brought 37 years of authoritarian rule to an end.
Mnangagwa, who has close ties to the army and the security establishment, returned to the country on Wednesday to take the reins and told adoring crowds in Harare that they were witnessing “unfolding full democracy.”
He will be sworn in as president at an inauguration ceremony on
- - cession tussle with the former force Mugabe from power, leading to his resignation on Tuesday.
“Today we are witnessing the beginning of a new and unfolding full democracy in our country,” he said in front of hundreds of supporters, some wearing shirts emblazoned with images of the 75-year-old leader.
“We want to grow our economy, we want jobs... all patriotic Zimbabweans (should) come together, work together,” he said.
He was surrounded by a large secu - ters of the ruling ZANU-PF party in a presidential-style motorcade.
Two young men held a stuffed - ence to Mnangagwas’s nickname, earned for his reputation for stealth and ruthlessness. Zimbabwe’s incoming president Emmerson Mnangagwa (L) speaks to supporters flanked by his wife Auxilia at Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party headquarters in Harare on Wednesday night.
‘All I want is job creation’
Manyame airbase from South Africa, heading to the State House, the
“Great speech all round, can’t describe how I felt seeing him after what he went through. All I want is job creation,” said Remigio Mutero, 30, an unemployed IT graduate.
Mugabe’s iron grip ended Tuesday in a shock announcement to parlia impeach the 93-year-old leader who - bwean public life for decades.
He had last been seen in public on - dress on Sunday, but neither he nor with their whereabouts unknown.
On the streets, the news that his long and often brutal leadership which lasted late into the night, with crowds dancing and cheering amid a cacophony of car horns.
Excited crowds
A former key Mugabe ally, Mnangagwa saying he would not return without guarantees for his safety.
His sacking was the result of an increasingly bitter succession from her ageing husband.
But critics describe Mnangagwa as a ruthless hard-liner who was behind authoritarian as his mentor.
Rinaldo Depagne of the International Crisis Group said Mugabe’s departure “does not necessarily mean more democracy.”
Mugabe’s resignation capped a chaotic week in which the military seized control and tens of thousands of Zimbabweans took to the streets in an unprecedented show of dissent against Mugabe, who left behind an economy in ruins.
“We hope to be able to access our money from the bank come December and the US dollar must come back,” said Talent Chamunorwa, 37, a brick seller.
He was referring to Zimbabwe’s chronic shortage of cash and a mistrusted scheme for “bond notes” to the US currency, but which trade at a much lower rate in reality.
State-run newspaper The Herald again go back into a box of silence.”
“All future Zimbabwean leaders - tomed to plain speaking, to listening and then explaining what they are doing and why,” it said in a comment piece Wednesday.