#Zimbabwe: A coup by another name

After decades of an iron-fist rule in which he used the army to prop up his brutal regime, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has had a taste of his own medicine. File picture: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

After decades of an iron-fist rule in which he used the army to prop up his brutal regime, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has had a taste of his own medicine. File picture: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

Published Nov 16, 2017

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Johannesburg - It was a long-time coming. After decades of an iron-fist rule in which he used the army to prop up his brutal regime, Robert Mugabe has had a taste of his own medicine.

The nonagenarian Zimbabwean leader has finally handed over power to the same army that helped him stay on for decades, including when he lost the election to former trade union leader Morgan Tsvangirai, in 2008.

And yet it didn’t have to end this way.

For many years, the Zimbabwean army wanted Mugabe, 93, to have a dignified exit. He is a liberation Struggle icon who, at independence from Britain in 1980, was revered by many across the continent and expected to take the country on a path to democracy and prosperity.

In the early years when Mugabe took over, first as prime minister then president, Zimbabwe was a prosperous country - the bread basket of Africa - and one of the most promising economies on

the continent.

Today it is a begging basket, ruined by nearly four decades of misrule under Mugabe and his liberation movement, Zanu-PF.

He has become more power-drunk by the day, aided by his young, South African-born wife Grace, 52.

Both husband and wife have sobered up to the reality that Zimbabwe is not a dynasty.

Grace, part of a Zanu-PF faction called G40 (Generation 40-year-olds) must have believed, until Tuesday, that her road to becoming the next president had been cleared following the axing last week of long-time Mugabe henchman and fellow liberation stalwart, vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Popularly known as ED, Mnangagwa leads a faction called Lacoste (he is nicknamed

the Crocodile).

Before him, Mugabe had also purged another liberation stalwart and vice-president, Joice Mujuru, whose husband Solomon Mujuru, highly respected by the army, died in a mysterious fire at his farm in 2011.

The army has had enough of the purges and announced it would not “hesitate” to step in.

It has taken over and promised Zimbabwe would return to normalcy once it has “completed our mission”, and that its target is not Mugabe, but those “around him”.

But while the army denies this is a coup, the evidence on the ground shows power has changed hands - from Mugabe to the army, who want Mnangagwa back and to take over as president of both the party and the country. Perhaps Mujuru will also return.

Mugabe might have his retirement, but no longer on his terms.

The same army he used to crush and intimidate his opponents has ended his bloody, 37-year grip to power. It has all ended in tears for the world’s oldest leader.

The army might decide to keep him, for as

long as he does not interfere in or allow his ambitious wife, Grace, to play a key role in the politics of Zimbabwe.

But the bloodless coup will also test the relevance of the Southern African Development Community, chaired by South Africa, which has always maintained a so-called “quiet diplomacy” on Zimbabwe even when it was clear that the rule of law and democracy had crashed, and that opposition leaders and their supporters were being attacked, killed and forced into exile.

The SADC did nothing and showed it was a toothless bulldog. Instead, it declared the stolen polls free and fair when it was as clear as day they were rigged.

The regional body - and South Africa in particular - has a crisis on its doorstep: To accept the coup or not to accept the coup?

That’s the question it will ponder in the coming days, but what is clear - very clear - is that Zimbabwe is under the direct control of the army and whoever wants to negotiate the transfer of power back to civilian rule will have to go to the army - on its terms.

Indeed, the army might have thwarted the capture of the state and the country by the Mugabes, but a new challenge looms.

If Mnangagwa becomes the next leader, the same army will make sure he stays on even when he loses elections in the future.

For a very long time the army will have a say in who rules Zimbabwe. And that can’t

be democracy.

As for Mugabe, he is the architect of his

own demise.

The Star

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