{"id":31996,"date":"2017-11-20T13:27:46","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T08:27:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31996"},"modified":"2017-11-20T17:02:57","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T12:02:57","slug":"president-mugabe-stuns-zimbabwe-by-defying-pressure-to-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tns.world\/?p=31996","title":{"rendered":"President Mugabe stuns Zimbabwe by defying pressure to resign"},"content":{"rendered":"

HARARE Nov 20 (TNS):<\/strong> President Robert Mugabe stunned Zimbabwe by making no mention of resignation in a television address, defying his own ZANU-PF party, which had sacked him hours earlier, and hundreds of thousands of protesters who had already hailed his downfall.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Two sources \u2014 one a senior member of the government, the other familiar with talks with leaders of the military \u2014 had told Reuters Mugabe would announce his resignation to the nation after ZANU-PF dismissed him as its leader in a move precipitated by an army takeover four days earlier.<\/p>\n

But in the speech from his State House office, sitting alongside a row of generals, Mugabe acknowledged criticisms from ZANU-PF, the military, and the public but made no mention of his own position.<\/p>\n

Instead, he said the events of the week were not \u201ca challenge to my authority as head of state and government\u201d, and pledged to preside over the congress scheduled for next month.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was dumbstruck.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am baffled. It\u2019s not just me, it\u2019s the whole nation. He\u2019s playing a game,\u201d he told Reuters. \u201cHe is trying to manipulate everyone. He has let the whole nation down.\u201d<\/p>\n

ZANU-PF had given the 93-year-old \u2014 who has led his country since independence in 1980 \u2014 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 military coup.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Zimbabwe war veterans’ leader Chris Mutsvangwa \u2014 who has been spearheading an 18-month campaign with others to oust Mugabe \u2014 said plans to impeach him in parliament, which next sits on Tuesday, would now go ahead, and that there would be mass protests on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

He also implied that Mugabe \u2014 who spoke with a firm voice but occasionally lost his way in his script during the 20-minute address \u2014 was not aware of what had happened just hours earlier.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

‘Blind or deaf’<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cEither somebody within ZANU-PF didn\u2019t tell him what had happened within his own party, so he went and addressed that meeting oblivious, or (he was) blind or deaf to what his party has told him,\u201d Mutsvangwa said.<\/p>\n

ZANU-PF\u2019s central committee had earlier named Emmerson Mnangagwa as its new leader. It was Mugabe\u2019s sacking of Mnangagwa as his vice-president \u2014 to pave the way for his wife Grace to succeed him \u2014 that triggered the army\u2019s intervention.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

On Saturday, hundreds of thousands had taken to the streets of the capital Harare to celebrate Mugabe\u2019s expected downfall and hail a new era for their country.<\/p>\n

In jubilant scenes, men, women and children ran alongside armoured cars and the troops who stepped in to target what the army called \u201ccriminals\u201d in Mugabe\u2019s inner circle.<\/p>\n

Many heralded a \u201csecond liberation\u201d and spoke of their dreams for political and economic change after two decades of deepening repression and hardship.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They \u2014 like the more than 3 million Zimbabweans who have emigrated to neighbouring South Africa in search of a better life \u2014 are likely to be bitterly disappointed by Mugabe\u2019s defiance.<\/p>\n

Speaking from a secret location in South Africa, Patrick Zhuwao \u2014 his nephew \u2014 had told Reuters that Mugabe and his wife were \u201cready to die for what is correct\u201d rather than step down in order to legitimise what he described as a coup.<\/p>\n

Zhuwao, who was also sanctioned by ZANU-PF, did not answer his phone on Sunday. However, Mugabe\u2019s son Chatunga railed against those who had pushed out his father.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can\u2019t fire a Revolutionary leader!\u201d he wrote on his Facebook page. \u201cZANU-PF is nothing without President Mugabe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danger ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n

The huge crowds in Harare have given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army\u2019s intervention, backing its assertion that it is merely effecting a constitutional transfer of power, rather than a plain coup, which would risk a diplomatic backlash.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

But some of Mugabe\u2019s opponents are uneasy about the prominent role played by the military and fear Zimbabwe might be swapping one army-backed autocrat for another, rather than allowing the people to choose their next leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe real danger of the current situation is that having got their new preferred candidate into State House, the military will want to keep him or her there, no matter what the electorate wills,\u201d former education minister David Coltart said.<\/p>\n

The United States \u2014 a longtime Mugabe critic \u2014 said it was looking forward to a new era in Zimbabwe, while President Ian Khama of neighbouring Botswana said Mugabe had no diplomatic support in the region and should resign at once.<\/p>\n

Besides changing its leadership, ZANU-PF said it wanted to change the constitution to reduce the power of the president, a possible sign of a desire to move towards a more pluralistic and inclusive political system.<\/p>\n

However, Mnangagwa\u2019s history as state security chief during the so-called Gukurahundi crackdown, when an estimated 20,000 people were killed by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in Matabeleland in the early 1980s, suggested that quick, sweeping change was unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe deep state that engineered this change of leadership will remain, thwarting any real democratic reform,\u201d Miles Tendi \u2014 a Zimbabwean academic at Oxford University \u2014 said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

HARARE Nov 20 (TNS): President Robert Mugabe stunned Zimbabwe by making no mention of resignation in a television address, defying his own ZANU-PF party, which had sacked him hours earlier, and hundreds of thousands of protesters who had already hailed his downfall. Two sources \u2014 one a senior member of the government, the other familiar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":32075,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1341,19],"tags":[1342,733],"class_list":["post-31996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-harare","category-world","tag-harare","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=31996"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31996\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32084,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31996\/revisions\/32084"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tns.world\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}