President Robert Mugabe has finally resigned as Zimbabwe’s president, ending his 37-year rule as president of Zimbabwe.
The 93-year-old Mugabe resigned in a letter submitted to parliament, Speaker Jacob Mudenda said, hours after Zimbabwe’s ruling party presented a motion to impeach him.
Mugabe had been accused of allowing his wife Grace, 52, to ‘usurp’ power and of being too old to rule. It is not clear what ill now happen to his loathed wife, dubbed Gucci Grace for her lavish spending.
Zimbabwe’s parliament erupted in cheers as the announcement was made that he had resigned ‘with immediate effect’. It is an extraordinary end for the world’s oldest head of state after a near four decades grip on power defined by brutality and economic collapse.
It comes after ousted vice president Emmerson ‘Crocodile’ Mnangagwa warned Mugabe to respect public opinion and step down after claiming there was a plot to ‘eliminate’ him. He said he would only return home when his security was assured and has turned down an invitation to meet the dictator.
The Mail Online reports that Mnangagwa, who is widely expected to take over after Mr Mugabe is removed, said the country had ‘spoken with one voice’ and that the 93-year-old should step down so that Zimbabwe can ‘move forward’.
He also claimed that shortly after his dismissal as Mugabe’s deputy, he was warned by security personnel ‘who are friendly to me’ that plans ‘were underfoot to eliminate me once arrested and taken to a police station. It was in my security interest to leave the country immediately’.
It comes as it emerged that the despot has been left isolated and humiliated after his demands for ministers to attend his weekly cabinet meeting were dismissed.
‘(South African) President Jacob Zuma and I have agreed to visit Harare tomorrow,’ Angolan President Joao Lourenco told journalists Tuesday after a meeting of the southern African regional bloc in Luanda.
The two leaders will represent the 15-nation Southern African Development Community (SADC) bloc of which their countries are the leading members.
SADC has sought to broker an end to the instability triggered when Zimbabwe’s army took over the country after t Mugabe sacked his vice president and cleared the way for his wife Grace to succeed him.
Earlier Zanu-PF’s secretary, Simon Khaya, told reporters that Mr Mugabe had been formally notified of the party’s decision to impeach him.
Mnangagwa said that he remained outside the country for his own safety, despite reports that he had already returned to Zimbabwe.
‘Mugabe made contact with me and invited me to return home for a discussion on the current political events in the nation, he said.
‘I told the President that I would not return home now until I am satisfied of my personal security.’
He added: ‘I told the President that the current political and constitutional crisis in the country is not a matter between him and myself but between the people of Zimbabwe and President Mugabe.’
An ally of Mr Mugabe hit back by taunting the army, claiming that he had safely fled the country along with 50 other members of the G40 group of Grace Mugabe’s allies.
Yesterday, the head of the army, Commander General Constantino Chiwenga, said Mr Mugabe and Mr Mnangagwa were going to meet ‘soon’.
The two men have not met since Mr Mnangagwa was sacked by Mr Mugabe in an attempt to clear the way for his wife, Grace, to succeed him.
The impeachment process was due to be put into action in parliament today and is expected to last at least until Thursday.
Opposition politicians are due to meet today to decide whether they will join the Zanu-PF in supporting the impeachment motion in parliament.
Yesterday, several senior opposition ministers said they would boycott the vote in retaliation for the Zanu-PF boasting that it did not need their help.
But a prominent critic of Mugabe, pastor Patrick Mugadza, warned that they would lose public support if they played politics with the issue.
Christopher Mutsvangwa, the chairman of the war veterans’ association, invited Zimbabweans to take to the streets in support of the impeachment today.
Yesterday, activists were drawing up plans to march on the dictator’s Blue Roof mansion as they continued to mobilise grassroots networks to keep up the pressure on the 93-year-old dictator.
If the protest goes ahead, it will be an unprecedented demonstration of confidence by a population that has been oppressed for almost 40 years.
The Blue Roof estate has always been heavily protected by the security services and even photographing it is forbidden in Zimbabwe’s constitution on pain of imprisonment.
On Saturday, Mr Mutsvangwa told MailOnline that he army had threatened to withdraw protection from Blue Roof and allow Mr Mugabe to be lynched.
But in a statement yesterday, he said that legal attempts were underway to declare the military takeover a ‘lawful and justified’ action intended to defend the constitution.
Mr Mugabe was no longer able to defend the interests of the nation as his wife and her associates, known as the G40 group, had gradually taken over the levers of power, Mr Mutsvangwa said.
Anti-Mugabe leaders are concerned that the takeover is seen as a legitimate operation and not a military coup. Many states would not recognise a government installed by an armed uprising as it would may provide a precedent that would destabilise the region.
Church leaders announced an open-air prayer meeting in central Harare today and encouraged Mr Mugabe to attend, though this seems unlikely.
Examinations at the University of Zimbabwe were abandoned yesterday after students demanded that Mr Mugabe be removed as university Chancellor and his wife be stripped of her doctorate.
Yesterday, the 93-year old former Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda, touched down in Zimbabwe on a private jet to convince his fellow nonagenarian to step down.
and then