Robert Mugabe agreed on Sunday to resign as Zimbabwe’s president hours after the
ruling ZANU-PF party fired him as its leader following 37 years in charge, a source
familiar with the negotiations said
ZANU-PF had given the 93-year-old less than 24 hours to quit as head of state or face
impeachment, an attempt to secure a peaceful end to his tenure after a de facto coup.
The source said the Zimbabwe military was working on a resignation statement by
Mugabe, without giving details
Zimbabwe’s state broadcaster ZBC said Mugabe would address the nation shortly. Earlier
on Sunday, the official Herald newspaper showed pictures of him meeting top generals at
his State House offices.
Mugabe, the only leader the southern African nation has known since independence from
Britain in 1980, was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the deputy he sacked this month
in a move that triggered the mid-week intervention by the army.
In scenes unthinkable just a week ago, the announcement drew cheers from the 200
delegates packed into ZANU-PF’s Harare headquarters to seal the fate of Mugabe, whose
support has crumbled in the four days since the army seized power.
Mugabe was given until noon (1000 GMT) on Monday to resign or face impeachment, an
ignominious end to the career of the “Grand Old Man” of African politics who was once
feted across the continent as an anti-colonial liberation hero.
Even in the West, he was renowned in his early years as the “Thinking Man’s Guerrilla”, an
ironic nickname for a man who would later proudly declare he held a “degree in violence
As the economy crumbled and political opposition to his rule grew in the late 1990s,
Mugabe seized thousands of white-owned farms, detained opponents and unleashed
security forces to crush dissent.
When the vote was announced, war veterans leader Chris Mutsvangwa, who has
spearheaded an 18-month campaign to remove a man he openly described as a “dictator”,
embraced colleagues and shouted: “The President is gone. Long live the new President.”
Mugabe’s 52-year-old wife Grace, who had harboured ambitions of succeeding her
husband, was also expelled from ZANU-PF, along with at least three cabinet ministers who
had formed the backbone of her “G40” political faction.
Speaking before the meeting, Mutsvangwa said Mugabe, who has so far resisted calls to
quit, was running out of time to negotiate his departure and should leave the country while
he could. “He’s trying to bargain for a dignified exit,” he said.
If Mugabe refused to go, “we will bring back the crowds and they will do their business,”
Mutsvangwa told reporters
Mnangagwa, a former state security chief known as “The Crocodile,” is expected to head an
interim post-Mugabe unity government that will focus on rebuilding ties with the outside
world and stabilising an economy in freefall.
The next presidential election is due in 2018.On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Harare, singing,
dancing and hugging soldiers in an outpouring of elation at Mugabe’s expected overthrow.
His stunning downfall is likely to send shockwaves across Africa, where a number of
entrenched strongmen, from Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of
Congo’s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step down.