Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, 93, made his first public appearance since the coup that kinda-sorta deposed him this week, attending a university graduation ceremony on Friday during which he apparently fell asleep.
The military seems to have intended Mugabe’s appearance as a means of reassuring the public and international observers that the dictator was alive and well, but some took it as a troubling sign that he might not be relinquishing power after all. The latest statement from military leaders merely indicated they are “engaging with the Commander-in-Chief President Robert Mugabe on the way forward and will advise the nation of the outcome as soon as possible.”
Theories were floated that coup leaders are more interested in preventing Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace from assuming power and purging them than they are in ending the old man’s decades of rule before he dies. Grace Mugabe was pointedly absent from the university ceremony her husband attended.
Chris Mutsvangwa, leader of a group of military veterans and ally of the sacked vice-president who was originally supposed to succeed Robert Mugabe, claims the president asked for “a few more days, a few more months” in power during his negotiations with army chiefs. This did not sit well with Mutsvangwa, who told reporters Mugabe “has to make a decision today to leave.”
“We will settle the scores tomorrow,” Mutsvangwa said on Friday. “There is no going back about Mugabe. He must leave.”
The leadership of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF Party evidently agrees. “If he becomes stubborn, we will arrange for him to be fired on Sunday. When that is done, it’s impeachment on Tuesday,” said a senior official within the party. Every provincial branch of Zanu-PF has now passed a motion of no confidence in Mugabe, creating a potential legal justification for officially stripping him of the presidency over the weekend.
Even more ominously, army chief General Constantino Chiwenga said that if a deal with Mugabe is not reached by Friday, “we do it the hard way.”
Former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reportedly been instrumental in the coup, drawing upon his close connections with the Zimbabwean military. The coup leaders have offered Mugabe a deal where Mnangagwa would become the leader of Zanu-PF and then run for president.
“This takeover was planned a long time ago by Emmerson Mnangagwa and secret discussions did take place with the opposition about a succession plan including forcing out Mugabe,” a senior opposition leader told CNN.
A massive demonstration is planned in the capital of Harare on Saturday to call for Mugabe’s resignation. Opposition leaders made it plain much of their unhappiness stems from the effort to install the widely loathed Grace Mugabe, a 52-year-old shopaholic whose lavish lifestyle profoundly irks the population of economically devastated Zimbabwe, as his successor.
“Ninety-nine percent of people want Mugabe to go. He is no longer in charge … Grace is in charge and Zimbabweans cannot fold their arms and let a character of that nature to lead. She had to be stopped,” said opposition leader and coup supporter Dumiso Dabengwa, as quoted by the UK Guardian.
Or, as one Zimbabwean poignantly put it to CNN, “We need a new president. We need bread and butter.”
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