Zim army does about-turn
Military boss Chiwenga says President Mugabe has agreed to some of their demands
HARARE: President Robert Mugabe is not going anywhere.
At least for now, if the Zimbabwe Defence Force commanders have their way.
Confusion and anger deepened in Harare last night after the army called a press conference in which its boss, Constantine Chiwenga, read a carefully drafted statement indicating Mugabe had agreed to some of their demands, and urged Zimbabweans to go back to their lives and not riot or destroy property.
Chiwenga added that former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was unceremoniously fired by Mugabe, would “return to the country shortly”, ending almost two weeks of a bloodless coup that brought hope to Zimbabweans who saw this as the end of the Mugabe era.
But the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change ( MDC) insisted they would proceed with a motion today to impeach Mugabe.
MDC MP James Maridadi has previously attempted to impeach Mugabe.
Speaking to Independent Media yesterday, Maridadi said his move to impeach Mugabe was not inspired by the current political situation, but it was because the president had over the years failed in his duties as head of state, and had transferred his powers to his wife, Grace.
His ailing health, poor sense of judgement and lack of response to the rampant corruption in the country had made Mugabe a national liability, he said.
“How do you run a country in which nobody likes you?” said Maridadi. He added that old age and ill-health had rendered Mugabe incapable of running the country.
“He has to frequently seek medical attention abroad and sleeps during public functions. He collapsed at the airport, in the full glare of the world, because the feet and the brain do not talk to each other,” said Maridadi.
As Zimbabweans come to grips with living in an army state, Maridadi has intensified his resolve to impeach Mugabe today when he will move the motion in parliament at 2.15pm.
Mugabe’s own party, which fired him on Sunday, is also expected to move a motion to impeach the nonagenarian leader, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980. Zanu-PF deputy legal secretary Paul Mangwana said yesterday he was confident the impeachment would succeed and that they were working with the MDC, who would give them 71 votes, while the other MDC faction led by Welshman Ncube would also donate two additional votes.
Zanu-PF said in a statement yesterday that it had instructed its chief whip to proceed with the impeachment proceedings after Mugabe missed the noon deadline yesterday to resign, and that the president had been notified of the central committee’s decision to recall him.
This is despite the army last night saying they had resolved the issues with Mugabe, and that Mnangagwa would be return to the country.
It was unclear last night if soldiers, armed to the teeth, would immediately withdraw from the streets, but a national shutdown is expected for tomorrow.
Lawmakers, war veterans and Zanu-PF officials are ratcheting up pressure for Mugabe to go, plotting their next move in parliament.
“The only constitutional way to remove Mugabe is through parliament or an election,” said Maridadi. “I’ve always wanted to impeach Mugabe. What I’m doing now is informed by what is happening in the country now and not by the military takeover but by people’s suffering.
“This is also not about the removal of Mugabe but about the overhaul of the entire system. The system of Zanu-PF has no capacity to transform the economy,” Maridadi said. But Maridadi, who carries a
‘It’s not like removing a cashier. He’s commander of the forces’
copy of the constitution around, cautions that the removal of a president is quite arduous and could take weeks, by which time the Zanu PF congress, set for December, would have come and gone.
“The removal of a president must be foolproof; this is not like removing a cashier at a night club. This is the commander of the armed forces,” he warned.
Leaving nothing to chance, war veterans leader Christopher Mutsvangwa revealed that the former freedom fighters would also approach the high court in yet another legal bid to oust Mugabe, who has been under house arrest since the army took over last Wednesday.
The three-pronged move to oust Mugabe came as students at the University of Zimbabwe yesterday took to the streets demanding the withdrawal of a doctorate degree awarded to Mugabe’s wife Grace, and calling on the president to go. They threatened not to write their final exams until Mugabe goes.
Meanwhile, a tweet emanating from Jonathan Moyo’s verified account appeared at 5.35pm yesterday.
The tweet read: “Ïn these difficult and trying times that have been thrust upon our country, I wish to advise concerned family and friends that I’m relatively fine outside the country, as are ministers Kasukuwere, Zhuwao, Hlongwane, Zhanda plus at least 50 others, who include MPs & Zanu PF officials.”
The tweet was immediately deleted, raising questions as to the true whereabouts of those reported to have been arrested by the police. Finance Minister Ignatius Chombo’s name was conspicuous by its absence on the tweet.
The whereabouts of Grace Mugabe is also unknown.
She has not been seen or heard from since the army seized power last week, with some reports claiming she had fled to Namibia. Her truant sons, Robert jn and Chatunga, are believed to be at the family’s mansion in Sandton, Johannesburg.
Two ministers wanted by the army, Walter Mzembi and Patrick Zhuwao, Mugabe’s nephew, are also believed to be hiding in South Africa.
ALL EYES have been on Zimbabwe for an entire week now after the army moved through the streets of Harare to “secure” the safety of President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace.
Since then, in unimaginable scenes, the people of this erstwhile African breadbasket have taken to the streets in jubilation at the imminent political demise of their once revered liberation leader, and the ruling party Zanu-PF has fired him from all party structures and expelled his wife and her acolytes. It’s a phenomenal about-turn by a party over which Mugabe once held an iron grip and only weeks before he rubber-stamped his wife’s accession to the highest rung in the presidential succession ladder.
This, though, has been a most un-African coup. The military, once the iron fist for Mugabe’s repressive regime, have been greeted with the same manic fervour as the Allied troops entering Paris in 1944. The generals have behaved scrupulously to ensure that, publicly at least, there has been no military suspension of political power.
There is a very clear reason for this; had there been a coup, the African Union and the Southern African Development Community would have been forced to intervene militarily because the continent, officially, abhors the wresting of political power by force. The irony of course is the tacit acceptance by the AU and SADC of Mugabe’s egregious efforts to use everything at his disposal to pervert democracy for the last 37 years.
But some Zimbabweans are not counting their chickens until he is officially out.
Southern African experts are well aware that procrastination resulted in South Africa’s PW Botha failing to cross the Rubicon in August 1985. Our neighbours do not want to see a stumble at the Rubicon in their country for a similar reason.
The army might have acted at the behest of a disavowed faction in the ruling party, but its acts have been ratified by the people and the ruling party.
Mugabe, either wittingly or through a comedy of errors, might have avoided the consequences of his misrule thus far, but later today – should he not have stepped down – there is no doubt that the Zimbabwean parliament will impeach him, such is the current climate. It will be a scene that would have been unimaginable only weeks before.
It should send an ice cold shower upon the heads of other leaders eyeing dynastic successions at the expense of the people they’re supposed to serve.