Ruling party to expel Mugabe
Zimbabwe’s president makes first public appearance since arrest
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Zimbabwe’s governing party moved Friday to expel President Robert Mugabe from its ranks, taking the first step in legally ousting the 93-year-old leader following a military intervention two days earlier.
A majority of the leaders of the party, ZANU-PF, recommended Mugabe’s expulsion from the very organization that he had controlled with an iron grip since independence in 1980, according to ZBC, the state broadcaster.
Military officers have insisted that their takeover was not a coup, but the party’s leaders appeared Friday to be providing political cover for the intervention. The party’s central committee, Parliament and Mugabe’s Cabinet could now take steps to officially end his presidency, if he does not resign.
The military arrested Mugabe early Wednesday, effectively ending his 37-year rule, although it allowed him to appear in public Friday to address a university graduation.
Later Friday, party members endorsed the military’s efforts to stabilize the economy and defuse political instability. “Many of us had watched with pain as the party and government were being reduced to the personal property of a few infiltrators with traitorous histories and questionable commitment to the people of Zimbabwe,” the party leaders said in a resolution.
The resolution recommended that Mugabe be removed for mistreating his vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whom Mugabe abruptly dismissed
last week; and for encouraging “factionalism.” It urged the “immediate and unconditional reinstatement” of Mnangagwa, who appears poised to succeed Mugabe.
Party members also moved to schedule a march for Saturday in support of the military.
Over the past few days, the military has been in negotiations to find a peaceful and face-saving way for Mugabe to exit the scene, in talks mediated by South Africa and other countries in the region and by the Roman Catholic Church.
On Friday, Mugabe was freed — if only temporarily — to address a university graduation
ceremony. It was his first public appearance since the military placed him under house arrest — an illustration, perhaps, that this was no ordinary attempt to oust a despot.
Mugabe has dominated his country since independence from Britain 37 years ago.
The talks involving the Catholic Church and South African mediators are intended to devise some form of transition that would have the appearance of constitutional legitimacy while providing a decorous departure for a leader whose role in the pre-independence liberation struggle is central to the national narrative.