Endgame for Mugabe
President waits on promise of safe passage as his supporters melt away in fear of the military
The 37-year rule of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe was believed to be close to its end last night, as the president was handed plans for a vote of no confidence following Tuesday’s coup. Mr Mugabe, 93, held talks in Harare’s state house with senior military officers, including Gen Constantino Chiwenga, above, the armed forces chief, and envoys sent by Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa. Senior sources said plans had been made for a vote in parliament as early as Monday.
Peta Thornycroft
Roland Oliphant
ROBERT MUGABE was last night believed to be on the verge of resignation after he was presented with plans to unseat him via a vote of no confidence in Zimbabwe’s parliament, sources in Harare said.
Senior sources in the Zimbabwean military and the Movement for Democratic Change, the main opposition party, told The Daily Telegraph that preparations had been made for the vote of no confidence to end the president’s 37-year rule in the country’s parliament as early as Monday.
The parliamentary motion, which would see opposition members voting alongside dissenting members of the ruling Zanu-pf party, would require a simple majority to pass.
Mr Mugabe, 93, has defied calls to resign since the country’s military arrested him and his family on Tuesday night in a coup designed to prevent his wife, Grace Mugabe, from succeeding him as president.
His fate was sealed yesterday after many of his supporters in G40, the faction within the ruling party which supported Mrs Mugabe’s bid for power, deserted him out of fear of the military and a recognition that broad swathes of the public were already celebrating his pending departure.
Mr Mugabe spent much of yesterday afternoon locked in talks with senior military officers and envoys from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the regional bloc, at State House, his official residence in Harare. Photographs later emerged of Gen Constantino Chiwenga, the head of the armed forces and the executor of the coup, warmly shaking the president’s hand.
Two envoys sent from SADC via Jacob Zuma, the South African president, returned to South Africa late yesterday apparently satisfied that Mr Mugabe was willing to leave office of his own accord, avoiding an unconstitutional seizure of power.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC and who shared power with Mugabe between 2009 and 2013, added his voice to those calling on him to step aside.
“In the interest of the people of Zimbabwe, Mr Robert Mugabe must resign,” he said in Harare.
Mr Tsvangirai who returned early yesterday from South Africa, where he is being treated for cancer, said there should be a transitional period possibly involving a government of national unity after Mr Mugabe leaves office.
He also said he had not been approached to be part of any transitional mechanism but “if we are approached to negotiate such a process we will participate”.
Sources close to the military told this newspaper that they believed Mr Mugabe had resolved to step aside after he learnt of plans to unseat him in parliament. The same sources said that Mr Mugabe was shocked to discover how many people wanted him to leave, and was waiting on a promise of safe passage for Mrs Mugabe and other members of his family before accepting the fait accomplis. Singapore, where Mr Mugabe often goes for medical treatment, is one possible exile destination.
The Telegraph understands Paul Mangwana, the Zimbabwean military’s chief lawyer, and Douglas Mwonzora, the chief legal counsel for the MDC, were due to meet to discuss details of the plan last night.
It is believed the vote will be timed before Phelekezela Mphoko, the vicepresident, can return from an official visit to Japan and step in as acting president.
Jacob Mudenda, the speaker of the House, could appoint a new vice-president when Mr Mugabe leaves office.
Mr Mudenda is a supporter of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the recently sacked vice president, who is believed to be the military’s preferred candidate. It was his dismissal, after 40 years of service to Mr Mugabe, which sparked the military action.
For the last 18 months I have been warning of a gathering perfect storm in Zimbabwe – the unique convergence of several factors including Robert Mugabe’s frailty, his inability to hold his own party together, disunity in the opposition, a collapsing economy, a region distracted by its own domestic problems and an international community focused on Isil terrorism and Brexit. The de facto takeover by the Zimbabwean military is its inevitable result.
The military has been at pains to argue that this is not a coup d’etat and that they are acting within the constitution. Their announcements still recognise Mugabe as president. They have reassured all concerned that their focus is on ZANU-PF – which they feel has been hijacked by a cabal around Grace Mugabe. It is clear that their intention is to ensure that former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa takes over, and in so doing prevent a Mugabe dynasty.
Yet this is clearly a coup. Mugabe has been effectively under house arrest since Tuesday. The constitution makes it clear that troops can only be deployed “with the authority of the President”. The military have arrested cabinet ministers, a power solely reserved for the attorney general and police.
By law, this is treason writ large. But the main reason the generals are so anxious that this not be described as a coup is because they know that the African Union and Southern African Development Community will not recognise any government emerging from a coup. Given the calamitous plunge of the Zimbabwean economy, the generals understand that they cannot keep a restive population at bay if they don’t stabilise the economy quickly; and to do that they need international support.
Undoubtedly they have calculated that there is such distaste for a Mugabe dynasty that the world will look the other way. There are indeed many who are quietly celebrating the Mugabes’ political demise. In my view that is foolhardy. Aside from the obvious illegality, which no democrat can rejoice in, there is a more fundamental concern. Some of the coup’s generals participated in the genocide which occurred in the 1980s in Matabeleland, in the gross violence perpetrated against the opposition MDC in the last 17 years and the subversion of the 2013 general election. Accordingly there is a danger that the intention of the generals is not to move Zimbabwe towards democracy, but to ensure that one of their own remains in control of Zanu-pf and the country.
So while the end of Mugabe’s ruinous tenure is welcome, that must not blind Zimbabweans and the international community to the need to respect the constitution. Although the military action is a fait accompli, it must be made clear that their actions will not be ignored unless there is a rapid return to civilian rule and strict compliance with the constitution in the lead-up to the elections scheduled for next year. If Mugabe is forced to resign from office, that should not automatically result in any successor being recognised as legitimate. A resignation induced by coercion is as read more at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion illegal as a president being deposed.
We cannot, however, avoid the need for a practical solution to the legal and political quandary Zimbabwe is now placed in. That solution will be found in the formation of a transitional civilian government and the holding of elections next year which fully comply with the letter and spirit of the constitution. This includes the state-controlled media being opened up to all parties, all Zimbabwean citizens being enabled to register and vote (including citizens in the diaspora) and the Electoral Commission being run by nonpartisan technocrats.
Anything less than this will simply perpetuate Zimbabwe’s problems. Britain has an important role to play. It has the strength and historical interest to rally financial support to stabilise the Zimbabwean economy and assist in attracting desperately needed investment. But it needs to exercise this leverage judiciously. It must act in concert with regional powers, particularly South Africa, to insist on an irreversible process towards free and fair elections.