Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe yesterday faced the prospect of impeachment after going on Zimbabwe TV on Sunday night to assert his control despite the military takeover and his party’s vow to force him out.
In a televised address, the 93-year-old veteran leader defied expectations he would quit, pitching the country into a second week of political crisis.
The speech provoked anger and disbelief among many Zimbabweans, fueling concerns that Mugabe could face a violent backlash.
Photo: AFP
His once-loyal ZANU-PF party — which had sacked him on Sunday and told him to resign as head of state — had warned it would seek to impeach him if he failed to quit by midday yesterday.
Mugabe is a “source of instability,” has shown disrespect for the rule of law and is to blame for an unprecedented economic tailspin over the past 15 years, the party said yesterday in a draft impeachment motion.
The army said it would make a statement in response to the crisis triggered by Mugabe’s refusal to go.
Mugabe’s speech capped an extraordinary weekend that saw Zimbabweans celebrate and vent their anger in ways that would have been brutally repressed just a week ago, but their joy quickly turned to despair as Mugabe brushed aside the turmoil, blithely declaring he would chair a top-level meeting of the party that had just disavowed him.
Hundreds of noisy demonstrators gathered yesterday at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare to call for Mugabe to stand down.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, called Mugabe’s speech a “complete reversal of the people’s expectations.”
“The so-called negotiation with the army did not produce the dignified exit that the nation was expecting,” he said.
Chris Mutsvangwa, head of the influential war veterans’ association, called for less restrained protests than those staged at the weekend in an effort to dislodge Mugabe.
“This time there will be a sit-in. We are not going to be leaving Harare until this guy is gone,” he said yesterday, as he also threatened legal action against the president. “He’s lost his marbles.”
“Arrogant Mugabe disregards ZANU-PF,” screamed the front page of the Daily News.
Impeaching Mugabe, who is the only leader most Zimbabweans have ever known, would require a two-thirds supermajority in both houses of Zimbabwe’s parliament which is due to resume today.
Though Mugabe has struggled with public speaking in recent years, he appeared alert and attentive as he delivered his address.
He also made no reference to the hostile chorus calling for him to go.
Additional reporting by Reuters
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
China would train thousands of foreign law enforcement officers to see the world order “develop in a more fair, reasonable and efficient direction,” its minister for public security has said. “We will [also] send police consultants to countries in need to conduct training to help them quickly and effectively improve their law enforcement capabilities,” Chinese Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong (王小洪) told an annual global security forum. Wang made the announcement in the eastern city of Lianyungang on Monday in front of law enforcement representatives from 122 countries, regions and international organizations such as Interpol. The forum is part of ongoing