Mugabe insists he will stay on despite threat of impeachment today
Fears pent-up frustration may end in confrontation
ZIMBABWE’S PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe last night baffled the country by making an address on national television without announcing his resignation – setting the stage for him to be impeached.
The Central Committee of ruling party Zanu-PF had hours earlier told him to resign as president by noon today or face impeachment proceedings.
Crowds of cheering Zimbabweans had already started celebrating the departure of longtime president Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state at 93.
Placed under military house arrest amid fears he was positioning his wife to succeed him, warned by the ruling party’s Central Committee to step aside or face impeachment, he had been expected to resign in the speech.
Afterwards, Zanu-PF chief whip Lovemore Matuke said: “I don’t see us failing to proceed with the impeachment. The Central Committee decision stands until I am advised otherwise.” He added that “the speech was just surprising”.
He said: “It is not in line with what we expected. We had understood that his resignation was coming to avoid the embarrassment of impeachment. The army is taking its own route, and as politicians we are taking our own route, but the ultimate goal is to make sure he goes, which he should have done tonight.” Dictator risks wrath:
He is playing games with the people of Zimbabwe. Victor Matemadanda, secretary general of the country’s war veterans association.
ZIMBABWEANS HAVE said they feel profoundly disappointed that president Robert Mugabe is resisting pressure to step aside.
Last night they gathered in expectation of a celebration. Instead, in a televised speech, Mugabe appeared to hint at challenging the ruling party, which has expelled him as its leader, by staying on. He added to the confusion by saying he would preside over a party congress next month.
“The congress is due in a few weeks from now. I will preside over its processes, which must not be possessed by any acts calculated to undermine it or compromise the outcomes in the eyes of the public,” he said.
Officials close to the talks between Mugabe and the military had said the president would resign.
Victor Matemadanda, secretary general of the country’s war veterans association, said he feels betrayed.
He said: “He is playing games with the people of Zimbabwe. He agrees to go and then plays games with us like that at the last minute.”
Mr Matemadanda said the war veterans will again rally the people to protest, and “this time the army will let him face the people. ... The army will now choose between shooting the people or protecting Mugabe”.
Zimbabweans who gathered at a bar in the capital to celebrate the expected resignation said they are frustrated.
Nyasha said: “I would be happy for him, despite everything he has done, to leave with dignity and just walk away . ... He is so stubborn.”
Shengi said: “Mugabe is a dictator and he’ll always be a dictator.”
In his speech, Mugabe noted the political turmoil that led to his military house arrest and expulsion as ruling party leader.
“From tonight ... the nation at all levels gets refocused,” he said.
He said that “failures of the past” may have triggered anger in some quarters, which he calls “quite understandable”.
He also notes that “intergenerational conflict must be resolved”, a reference to his apparent positioning of his unpopular 52-year-old wife Grace, notorious for her lavish spending and violent temper, to succeed him.
Mugabe is 93 and had been backed by fellow veterans of the country’s liberation war, until they turned against him.
Tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of the capital to demand that Mugabe, one of Africa’s last remaining liberation leaders, step aside after overseeing the once-prosperous country’s economic collapse.
The deputy whom Mugabe fired, former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, is poised to be Zimbabwe’s next leader after the Central Committee made him its nominee to take over when Mugabe goes.
Clinging to his virtually powerless post, Mugabe earlier discussed his exit with the army commander who put him under house arrest days ago.
On Saturday, most of Harare’s population of 1.6 million poured into the streets in an anti-Mugabe demonstration that just days ago would have brought a police crackdown.
The euphoria came after years of watching the once-prosperous African nation fall into decay, with cronyism and corruption rife, a collapsing economy, repression of free speech, disputed elections and international sanctions.