Robert Mugabe Agrees To Resign

Reports from Zimbabwe say that the 93-year old Zimbabwean President, Mr. Robert Mugabe, has agreed to step down as president.

This is coming a few hours after the ruling party, Zanu-PF, announced his sack as the leader of the party.

*Robert and Grace Mugabe (pix:pressfrom)

His wife, Grace Mugabe, was removed as leader of the Zanu-PF women  league. Reports say she has also been expelled from the party. 

Mugabe has been under house arrest since Wednesday November 15 following his unceremonious removal from office and takeover of the running of the country by the armed forces led by Gen Constantino Chiwenga.

London Telegraph reports that the ruling party “had given the 93-year-old 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 coup.”

Mugabe had led the party and the country since 1980 when Zimbabwean gained its independence from Britain.

Reuters news agency quotes unnamed sources as saying that the military are preparing a resignation statement which Mr. Mugabe is expected to read on national television this evening.

Reports say former Vice President Emerson Mnangagwa who returned from exile shortly after the army removed Mr. Mugabe on Wednesday where he had fled after Mugabe sacked him is expected to take over as the leader of the ruling party. 

He will also most likely emerge as the presidential candidate of the Zanu-PF f the coming elections in July 2018.

Analysts say that with Mr. Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe, there is really nothing new to celebrate in Zimbabwe. 

Given his antecedents, his emergence will likely to circulate fears across the country.  

A CNN report claims that the “fear of Mnangagwa stems from his position as Mugabe's enforcer and head of the Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), or secret police, and his alleged role in the 1983-84 massacres of the Ndebele ethnic group in Matabeleland, a region in Zimbabwe's southwest that was a center of political opposition to Mugabe's regime”.

According to the CNN, “the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an international non-partisan organization, estimate at least 20,000 civilians were killed by the CIO and the armed forces.”

Mnangagwa's pet name is "the crocodile" which he earned as a result of his celebrated toughness, which some would prefer to refer to as ruthlessness.