Mugabe digs in, ignores deadline for resignation
Former loyalists are threatening impeachment
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Former loyalists of President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe vowed Monday to begin impeachment proceedings against him, after he ignored their ultimatum demanding he step down.
About 230 of 260 lawmakers from ZANU-PF, the political party Mugabe led from 1977 until his expulsion Sunday, met at the party’s headquarters in Harare, the capital, and agreed to begin impeachment proceedings Tuesday — a process that could take weeks.
The protracted negotiations between military leaders who seized power Wednesday and Mugabe have frustrated Zimbabweans who had hoped for a quick resolution to the standoff, most likely involving Mugabe’s resignation and, perhaps, exile. If the military was hoping that the party’s intervention might end the standoff, such hopes appeared to be dashed Monday.
Military intervention
Though visibly enfeebled, Mugabe, 93, has shown the negotiating skills that have kept him in power for 37 years. He gave a televised address Sunday in which he stunned his nation by not announcing his resignation.
On Monday, the head of the military said Mugabe had been in touch with his estranged deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president whose firing set off the chain of events leading to the military intervention last Wednesday that took Mugabe into custody.
“The Zimbabwe Defense Forces and security services are encouraged by new developments, which include contact between the president and former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is expected in the country shortly,” the army commander, Gen. Constantino Chiwenga, told journalists. “The nation will be advised on the outcome of talks between the two.”
Critics of Mugabe, including allies who have quickly turned against him, expressed impatience with the delay.
“We want him out of office immediately,” Christopher Mutsvangwa, the powerful head of the war veterans association, said at a news conference Monday, urging governing party lawmakers to work with the opposition to remove the president.
He added that war veterans, who helped organize a rally against Mugabe on Saturday, would stage another one in the coming days.
Despite such calls, Mugabe’s swift removal is running into obstacles.
For one, the impeachment process has never been tested in Zimbabwe, as Mugabe is the only president the country has known since becoming an independent nation in 1980. Under the constitution, removing the president from office requires the assent of two-thirds of lawmakers in both the Senate and the National Assembly. ZANU-PF holds such a supermajority in both chambers, though a number of its members remain loyal to Mugabe.
Military officers have insisted their takeover was not a coup and have tried to give their intervention a veneer of legality — portraying it as an attempt to save the ailing Mugabe from a faction led by his wife, Grace, that had effectively seized control of the government.
But to complete this picture of legality, they need Robert Mugabe’s cooperation — a fact the president clearly understands and is exploiting as he reportedly negotiates his future and that of his family.
Confusion reigns
Mnangagwa has not been seen in public since he was fired. Tshinga Dube, a former war veterans minister and an ally of Mnangagwa, said the former vice president was in South Africa on Monday.
Questioned as to whether Mnangagwa would return soon, Dube said: “Yes, yes, very soon. Maybe even this week, maybe.”
Simon Khaya Moyo, ZANU-PF’s spokesman, said he had “no idea” when Mnangagwa would return. Asked why the party’s new leader had not returned already, Moyo replied testily, “I don’t know.”
On Nov. 6, some hours after he was fired, Mnangagwa fled Zimbabwe, fearing arrest or worse, according to allies. In an escape worthy of his background as a liberation war veteran and his nickname, the Crocodile, he apparently outmaneuvered Mugabe’s security forces, though he came close to being caught.
Mnangagwa had private planes belonging to friends ready to take off at the airport, creating the impression he would fly out of Zimbabwe, said Mutsvangwa.
Instead, Mnangagwa drove in a single vehicle toward neighboring Mozambique, where he has strong military ties, accompanied by a son and a young assistant.