Mugabe defies demands to quit as Zimbabwe's leader after party fires him

Reuters

Published Nov 19, 2017 03:01PM ET

Mugabe defies demands to quit as Zimbabwe's leader after party fires him

By Cris Chinaka, MacDonald Dzirutwe and Joe Brock

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Sunday defied his own ZANU-PF party and hundreds of thousands of protesters demanding his resignation by pledging in a television address to preside over the party's next congress in December.

Two sources - one a senior member of the government, the other familiar with talks with leaders of the military - had told Reuters Mugabe would use the address to announce his resignation after ZANU-PF earlier sacked him as its leader in a step precipitated by an army takeover four days earlier.

But in the speech from his official residence, sitting alongside a row of generals, Mugabe acknowledged criticisms from ZANU-PF, the military and the public, but made no mention of his own position, instead pledging to preside over the ZANU-PF congress scheduled for next month.

ZANU-PF had given the 93-year-old, who led his country to indepndence in 1980, 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 military coup.

The leader of Zimbabwe's liberation war veterans said plans to impeach Mugabe would now go ahead.

Chris Mutsvangwa, who has been leading a campaign to oust Mugabe, told Reuters in a text message moments after Mugabe finished his speech that people would take to the streets of Harare on Wednesday.

ZANU-PF's central committee had earlier named Emmerson Mnangagwa as its new leader. It was Mugabe's sacking of Mnangagwa as his vice-president, to pave the way for his wife Grace to succeed him, that triggered the army's intervention.