Defiant Robert Mugabe facing a day of reckoning
● President given until midday to resign or he will face impeachment
Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabwe shocked his nation by refusing to resign last night, setting up a day of expected legal challenges, protests, and uncertainty. Impeachment charges loom if he fails to comply by 10am today
President Robert Mugabe defied his country and shocked the world last night when he reneged on an expected deal to stand down.
Just hours after he was deposed by his own party and warned he faced impeachment charges if he refused to go, he stared down the TV cameras and generals in the wings by insisting he remained the nation’s commander in chief.
In a televised address, 93-year-old Mugabe appeared to accept there were “a whole range of concerns” for Zimbabweans about the chaotic state of the government and the economy.
But as a nation stared at the pictures on screen and drew their breath, he stopped well short of what many people in the southern African nation were hoping for – a statement that he was resigning after nearly four decades in power.
It leaves the once-formidable Mugabe now a virtually powerless, isolated figure.
Yet it leaves the country in a dangerous position too. He is largely confined to his private home by the military, the ruling party has fired him from his leadership post and huge crowds poured into the streets of Harare, the capital, to demand again he leave office.
Yet the Zimbabwean president still sought to project authority in his speech, which he delivered after shaking hands with security force commanders, one of whom leaned over a couple of times to help Mugabe find his place on the page he was reading.
The Central Committee of the ruling Zanu-pf party voted to dismiss Mugabe as party leader at a meeting earlier in the day and said impeachment proceedings would begin if he doesn’t resign as the country’s president by noon today.
Mugabe made no reference to the party moves against him, instead saying he would play a leading role in a parzimbabwe’s ty congress planned for 12-17 December.
“The congress is due in a few weeks from now,” Mugabe said. “I will preside over its processes, which must not be prepossessed by any acts calculated to undermine it or compromise the outcomes in the eyes of the public.”
He has discussed his possible resignation on at least two occasions with military commanders after they effectively took over the country on Tuesday, troubled by his firing of his longtime deputy and the positioning of unpopular first lady Grace Mugabe to succeed him.
He referred to the military’s expressions of concerns about the state of Zimbabwe, whose economy has deteriorated amid factional battles within the ruling party.
“Whatever the pros and cons of the way they went about registering those concerns, I as the president of Zimbabwe, as their commander in chief, do acknowledge the issues they have drawn my attention to, and do believe that these were raised in the spirit of honesty and out of deep and patriotic concern for the stability of our nation and for the welfare of our people,” Mugabe said.
The deputy whom Mugabe fired, former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, is positioned to become Zimbabwe’s next leader after the ruling party’s Central Committee made him its nominee to take over from Mugabe, who has ruled since independence from white minority rule in 1980. Committee members stood, cheered and sang after Mugabe was removed from his post as party leader. Meeting chair Obert Mpofu referred to him as “outgoing president” and called it a “sad day” for Mugabe after his decades in power.
“He has been our leader for a long time and we have all learned a great deal from him,” Mpofu said. But Mugabe, he said, “surrounded himself with a wicked cabal.”
The meeting replaced Mugabe as party chief with Mnangagwa and recalled the first lady as head of the women’s league.