Harare - Zimbabwe's ruling party will
dismiss President Robert Mugabe as its leader on Sunday to force
him to call an end to his 37 years in power peacefully following
a de facto military coup, the head of the liberation war
veterans said.
Speaking to Reuters as he walked into an extraordinary
meeting of Zanu-PF's central committee, Chris Mutsvangwa said
Mugabe was running out of time to negotiate his departure and
should leave the country while he could.
"We are going all the way," Mutsvangwa said. "He's trying to
bargain for a dignified exit."
He followed up with threat to call for street protests if
Mugabe refused to go, telling reporters: "We will bring back the
crowds and they will do their business."
Mutsvangwa, who has spearheaded a campaign over the last 18
months to remove the only leader Zimbabwe has known, said
Zanu-PF would also dismiss Mugabe's wife Grace as head of its
Women's League and reinstate ousted vice-president Emmerson
Mnangagwa.
The former state security chief, known as "The Crocodile",
is thought to be in line to head an interim post-Mugabe unity
government that will focus on rebuilding ties with the outside
world and stabilising an economy in freefall.
State television said late on Friday that Mugabe, who has so
far resisted pressure to quit, would meet military commanders
who seized power in a de facto coup four days ago, along with a
Catholic priest who has been mediating between the two sides.
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 expected overthrow.
His stunning downfall in just four days 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 quit.
Men, women and children ran alongside the armoured cars and
troops who stepped in this week to oust the man who has ruled
since independence from Britain in 1980.
Under house arrest in his lavish 'Blue Roof' compound,
Mugabe has refused to stand down even as he has watched his
support from party, security services and people evaporate in
less than three days.
His nephew, Patrick Zhuwao, told Reuters Mugabe and his wife
were "ready to die for what is correct" rather than step down in
order to legitimise what he described as a coup.
But on Harare's streets, few seemed to care about the legal
niceties as they heralded a "second liberation" for the former
British colony and spoke of their dreams for political and
economic change after two decades of deepening repression and
hardship.
"These are tears of joy," said Frank Mutsindikwa, 34,
holding aloft the Zimbabwean flag. "I've been waiting all my
life for this day. Free at last. We are free at last."
The huge crowds in Harare have given a quasi-democratic
veneer to the army's intervention, backing its assertion that it
is merely effecting a constitutional transfer of power, rather
than a plain coup, which would entail a diplomatic backlash.
Despite the euphoria, some Mugabe opponents are uneasy about
the prominent role played by the military, and fear Zimbabwe
might be swapping one army-backed autocrat with another, rather
than allowing the people to choose their next leader.
"The real danger of the current situation is that having got
their new preferred candidate into State House, the military
will want to keep him or her there, no matter what the
electorate wills," former education minister David Coltart said.
The United States, a long-time Mugabe critic, said it was
looking forward to a new era in Zimbabwe, while President Ian
Khama of neighbouring Botswana said Mugabe had no diplomatic
support in the region and should resign at once.