President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has been sacked as leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the deputy he sacked this month, sources at a special ZANU-PF meeting to decide Mugabe’s fate told Reuters on Sunday.
“He has been expelled,” one of delegates told Reuters.
“Mnangagwa is our new leader.”
Three other delegates confirmed Mugabe’s dismissal.
Patrick Zhuwao, said that the president and his wife Grace are “ready to die for what is correct” and have no intention of stepping down.
Speaking to Reuters from a secret location in South Africa, Zhuwao said Mugabe had hardly slept since the military seized power on Wednesday but his health was otherwise “good.”
An extraordinary meeting of the party’s central committee convened around 10:30 a.m. (0830 GMT) to consider removing the 93-year-old, four days after a military seizure of power ostensibly aimed at “criminals” within his entourage.
Separately, state television said Mugabe would meet military commanders on Sunday, quoting the Catholic priest who has been mediating in negotiations with the president.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Harare, singing, dancing and hugging soldiers in an outpouring of elation at Mugabe’s overthrow.
ZANU-PF’s central committee is also expected to reinstate Mnangagwa as party vice-president, resurrecting the political career of the former security chief, nicknamed The Crocodile, whose sacking this month triggered the military’s intervention.
Mugabe’s wife, Grace, will be fired as head of the ZANU-PF Women’s League, the sources told Reuters, completing the ouster of a 52-year-old former government typist who just a week ago stood in pole position to succeed her husband after Mnangagwa’s dismissal.
The pair’s stunning downfall is likely to send shockwaves across Africa, where a number of entrenched strongmen, from Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni to Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph Kabila, are facing mounting pressure to step aside.
