Jubilation on the streets marks end of Mugabe era
Dancing in the street – and the parliament – as Zimbabwe’s veteran dictator resigns
THE streets of Harare erupted in celebration as Robert Mugabe resigned as president of Zimbabwe yesterday, bringing to an end 37 years in power.
Mr Mugabe’s resignation was announced during a joint session of both houses of the Zimbabwean parliament, which had gathered to begin impeachment proceedings.
It ends an era that began with Mr Mugabe as a hero of the struggle against white rule, and ended with him blamed for reducing his country to despotism and economic misery.
“My decision to resign is voluntary on my part and arises from my concern for the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and my desire for a smooth, nonviolent transfer of power,” Mr Mugabe said in a letter read out by Jacob Mudenda, the speaker of parliament.
The move was welcomed cautiously by the West, with the UK and the US calling for a peaceful transition to democracy. Boris Johnson hinted that Zimbabwe could rejoin the Commonwealth, from which it was suspended in 2002, if free and fair elections were held. The Foreign Secretary said Mr Mugabe had been “a despot”.
It was not immediately clear what Mr Mugabe, 93, or his wife, Grace, would do next. Mr Mugabe is widely expected to be succeeded by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the former security chief who fled to South Africa after Mr Mugabe fired him as vice-president on Nov 6.
The head of the Zimbabwean armed forces cautioned against retribution in the wake of Mr Mugabe’s resignation.
IT WAS just before sunset in Harare when the speaker of Zimbabwe’s parliament read out the letter that sent the capital into delirious celebration.
In it, Robert Mugabe, the world’s oldest serving head of state, had announced his decision to finally relinquish his grip on the country that he ruled with an iron fist for four decades.
“Parliament has erupted,” said Michael Carter, an MP from the Movement for Democratic Change, speaking from inside the chamber, before holding up his phone to the cacophony of whoops echoing around the auditorium.
Outside, as dusk gathered and street lights flickered on, the old colonial thoroughfare of Samora Machel Avenue was suddenly flooded with people jumping, ululating and sobbing.
It was a euphoric, if chaotic, end to seven days that shook Robert Mugabe’s world.
Gloria Chimini, 45, a parliamentary stenographer, could not stop whooping and crying: “Oh my God, Oh my God. I am so happy… now I just don’t care about anything because he is gone.”
“No one is invincible in life,” exclaimed Innocent Manase, a 28-year-old lawyer. “Let’s not make a mistake of forgiving his past wrongs. This must serve as an example to future presidents that you don’t take people for granted.”
Others were blunter about their desire for retribution: “I want to see him in leg irons,” shouted a man in central Harare, grinning so broadly his face seemed split. Nearby, a skinny young man shouting obscenities in his native Shona language, and in English, collapsed on the pavement laughing and clutching his phone. Celebrations were not confined to Harare. In Chitiungwiza, a shabby, litter-strewn dormitory town south of the capital, a mother of two young sons was too breathless to speak. “We are in the streets. We can’t stay inside, we have to celebrate the whole night by dancing and screaming,” she shouted. In Bulawayo, Judith Todd, daughter of Garfield Todd, the former Rhodesian prime minister and a pro-democracy activist who was stripped of citizenship by Mr Mugabe said: “Thank God… Congratulations to the brave people of Zimbabwe who have endured so much. “This is a new start and we must be now very, very careful to look after one another in this new beginning.” Further afield exiles and refugees of the large Zimbabwean diaspora in South Africa were savouring the fall of a regime they had fled. Chris Greenland, Zimbabwe’s first black judge, who was appointed by Mr Mugabe but quit the bench in protest against the regime’s disregard for the rule of law – who now lives in Pretoria – said, laughing: “Having a treble shot… single malt.”
Sally Mutseyami, a humanrights activist who fled after receiving threats and is now based in Britain, said: “I am ecstatic. We’ve had enough of Mugabe. In 37 years he managed to erode his achievement from that of a liberator to a dictator.” Mr Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe uninterrupted since independence from Britain in 1980. In that time he went from a globally respected champion of the anti-colonial liberation movement and reconciliation to a despised and feared despot. His four decades at the helm of the country unravelled in little more than a week after senior army officers took umbrage at his decision to sack his long-serving heir apparent, Emmerson Mnangagwa, last week.
Hours after Mr Mugabe resigned, Mr Mnangagwa told Newsday, a privatelyowned newspaper: “I want to congratulate the people of Zimbabwe on reaching this historic moment. Together, we will ensure a peaceful transition to the consolidation of our democracy, and bring in a fresh start for all Zimbabweans and foster peace and unity.”
He continued: “As I make my way back home, I look forward together with you the people of Zimbabwe to
‘I am ecstatic. We’ve had enough of Mugabe. In 37 years he managed to erode his achievement from that of a liberator to a dictator’
tackle the political and economic challenges facing our beloved country Zimbabwe. God bless Zimbabwe.”
Mr Mnangagwa, who fled Zimbabwe last week after being sacked by Mr Mugabe is expected to be sworn into office today.
The true cause of Mr Mugabe’s downfall was that blight of all dictatorships: uncertainty over who would succeed the tyrant once he died.
That simmering unease had festered into a raging feud between Mr Mnangagwa, a veteran of the war of independence favoured by the military and Zanu-pf’s old guard, and Grace Mugabe, the 53-year-old first lady who had made a play for the succession herself.
Wary of the dim view Zimbabwe’s neighbours would take of a full scale coup d’etat, the generals went to extraordinary lengths to dress up action as a “correction”.
Instead of putting Mr Mugabe against a wall, slinging him in jail, or putting him on the next plane out of the country – the tried and tested methods of past African military coups – they tried to persuade him that it was time to retire voluntarily.
A less tenacious or bloody minded leader might have taken the hint. But even at 93, Mr Mugabe proved both stubborn and wily.
In days of talks, he demanded a safe exit for himself and his wife and, sources suggested, ran rings around his captors by citing constitutional and diplomatic provisions that made them powerless to remove him. Sensing growing public frustration, the plotters and their allies attempted to convince their
him he had lost not only the faith of the military leadership, but also his party and the vast majority of the public.
In a demonstration of purpose, Zanupf, the party he founded, ousted him as leader and replaced him with Mr Mnangagwa. To drive the point home, the War Veterans, once the mainstay of Mr Mugabe’s support, allied with the opposition parties and civil society groups they once terrorised to mount an unprecedented march through the streets of Harare calling for his resignation.
Remarkably, even that seemed to make little impression on the isolated president. Instead of stepping down, he stunned the generals, the country and the world with a rambling speech reasserting his authority on Sunday night. But it appears the writing was on the wall. Even before the coup, the 16-country Southern African Development Community (SADC) led by Jacob Zuma had been applying pressure on the despot to resign, according to diplomatic cables seen by Reuters.
President Zuma had even suggested offering him a senior African Union role to persuade him to go peacefully.
Mr Mugabe’s tenacious grip on power finally slipped yesterday. As parliament moved to make good its threat of impeachment, he was humiliated when ministers boycotted a cabinet meeting at State House, his Harare office.
By afternoon, hundreds of members of the upper and lower house of the Zimbabwean legislature had to move from the small colonial era parliament building in the centre of the city, as it was too small for both houses, to a makeshift debating chamber in the Zimbabwe International Conference Centre to hear Zanu-pf table a remarkable motion of no confidence.
In a string of grievances, the motion accused Mr Mugabe of allowing his wife to “usurp” power and threaten Mr Mnangagwa’s life and of humiliating the country by falling asleep and struggling to stand and walk unsupported.
“We have seen the president sleeping in Cabinet and international meetings to the horror, shame and consternation of Zimbabweans,” the motion read. But they had not yet voted on the motion when Jacob Mudenda, the speaker, halted proceedings and read out a note that had been handed to him. When he got to the sentence beginning “my decision to resign”, the MPS did not need to hear any more.
The full sentence, if they had cared to hear it, was: “My decision to resign is voluntary on my part and arises from my concern for the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe and my desire for a smooth, non-violent transfer of power.”
Euphoria will, sooner rather than later, be replaced by the hard business of political bargaining. For Mr Mnangagwa, it will mean managing the expectations of his supporters, the Zimbabwean public, and the international community.
It is a daunting task. Sources close to him told The Daily Telegraph that he is not in perfect health and that he “knows exactly what has to be done to recover the economy” – a reference to an expected crackdown on corruption and lavish spending which will not necessarily be popular with cabinet ministers and Zanu-pf MPS.