Categories: Stories

Mugabe resigns-updated

President Robert Mugabe has just resigned while Members of Parliament where debating his impeachment at the Harare International Conference Centre where they wre holding a special sitting.

Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda read Mugabe’s resignation to celebrations from MPs on both sides of the aisle while outside, pandemonium broke with euphoric merriment among demonstrators gathered outside a hotel where the motion as being debated.

Mugabe’s resignation follows a takeover of the country last Tuesday by the military and confined him to his private residence. His letter of resignation said the decision was voluntary.

Emmerson Mnangagwa, the man Mugabe fired on November 6, is likely to takeover the presidency in the interim after the ruling ZANU-PF party rescinded his dismissal and appointed him its interim leader.

Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe from since independence from Britain in 1980, and was his party’s candidate for the elections scheduled for next year until a fallout  with his deputy Mnangagwa.

His dismissal of Mnangagwa was seen as a way of smoothing the path of his deeply unpopular wife, Grace Mugabe to takeover, prompting the military to takeover.

Nicknamed Gucci Grace for her penchant for luxury shopping, she entered politics and was appointed leader of the ZANU-PF women’s league in 2014, seen as preparing her for the top post.

Mugabe was feted as an African liberation hero in Africa but with deepening poverty and unemployment at over 90 percent, his popularity plummeted in his home country.- Own/The Source 

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This post was last modified on November 21, 2017 5:49 pm

Charles Rukuni

The Insider is a political and business bulletin about Zimbabwe, edited by Charles Rukuni. Founded in 1990, it was a printed 12-page subscription only newsletter until 2003 when Zimbabwe's hyper-inflation made it impossible to continue printing.

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