Impeachment looms over stubborn Mugabe
Zimbabwe president ignores quit deadline
HARARE: Longtime Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was facing impeachment last night after ignoring a noon deadline set by the ruling party to voluntarily step down.
As of press time last night, the Central Committee of the ruling party, Zanu-PF, was meeting to discuss the impeachment of the 93-year-old Mr Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, after 37 years in power.
Lawmakers had given Mr Mugabe until noon (5pm, Thai time) yesterday to voluntarily cede power before taking matters into their own hands.
At the same time, Zimbabweans stunned by his defiance during a televised national address on Sunday, when he insisted he would stay on to “preside over congress” next month, vowed more protests to make him leave.
Amid the political confusion, the government urged Cabinet ministers to pursue business as usual.
Some Zimbabwean media outlets, which previously faced tight restrictions by the Mugabe government, turned against the president even as he remained head of state.
“Arrogant Mugabe disregards Zanu PF”, blared the front page headline of the Daily News yesterday.
Opposition activists and the influential liberation war veterans association announced more demonstrations to pressure Mr Mugabe to go.
“Your time is up,” veterans association leader Chris Mutsvangwa said at a press conference.
He also suggested that the military, even though it put Mr Mugabe under house arrest days ago, was still beholden to him and compelled to protect him because he is officially their “commander in chief”.
Zimbabweans were astonished that Mr Mugabe, flanked by the military in his national address on Sunday night, did not announce his resignation as expected after the military and the ruling party turned on him and fired him as leader.
The war veterans’ association will go to court to argue that Mr Mugabe is “derelict of his executive duty”, Mr Mutsvangwa said.
Some ruling party members said an impeachment process likely wouldn’t lead to Mr Mugabe’s immediate resignation and could take days to complete.
He was stripped of his party leadership on Sunday by the Central Committee of Zanu-PF but said in his speech he would preside over a party congress next month.
The congress is expected to ratify his firing as party chief, the expulsion of the unpopular first lady, Grace Mugabe, and the naming of Mr Mugabe’s recently fired deputy to succeed him.
Some people in the capital, Harare, became more cautious about talking to reporters.
That contrasts with the jubilation and open condemnation of Mr Mugabe over the weekend, when the bulk of Harare’s population of roughly 1.6 million people appeared to be in the streets, dancing and taking selfies with soldiers in an event backed by the military.
At the University of Zimbabwe yesterday, students protested and refused to sit for exams, singing and demanding Mr Mugabe’s resignation. The spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Students Union, Zivai Mhetu, said they want all universities shut down until he does.
Mr Mugabe in his speech on Sunday night acknowledged “a whole range of concerns” of Zimbabweans about the chaotic state of the government and its collapsed economy, but he stopped short of what many in the southern African nation were hoping for — announcing his resignation.
The once-formidable Mr Mugabe is now virtually powerless, making his continued incumbency all the more unusual. He is largely confined to his private home by the military.
Yet he sought to project authority in his speech, which he delivered after shaking hands with security force commanders. The army commander himself, whose threat to “step in” last week led to Mr Mugabe’s house arrest, leaned over a couple of times to help the president find his place on the page he was reading.
Mr Mugabe has discussed his possible resignation on two occasions with military commanders after they effectively took over the country on Tuesday last week. The commanders were troubled by his firing of his longtime deputy and the positioning of unpopular first lady Grace Mugabe to succeed him.
“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,” Mr Mugabe said.
The deputy whom Mr Mugabe fired, former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa, is positioned to become Zimbabwe’s next leader after Zanu-PF made him its nominee.