ALSO READ: AS IT HAPPENED: Mugabe doesn't resign in much-anticipated address to nation
WATCH: Disbelief as defiant Mugabe gives national address
ALSO READ: 'We'll go for impeachment,' War veterans as they call for anti-Mugabe protest
20 Nov 2017
Ousted VP in contact with Mugabe, expected in Zimbabwe soon: army chief
Ousted Zimbabwean vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa is in contact with President Robert Mugabe and will return to the country soon, the army chief said in a televised statement Monday.
"The security services are encouraged by new developments which include contact between the president and the former vice president comrade Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa who is expected in the country shortly. Thereafter the nation will be advised of the outcome of talks between the two," said army chief general Constantino Chiwenga.
Last Friday, a senior aide who declined to be named said Mnangagwa had returned to Zimbabwe the day before, after spending nearly a week abroad. - AFP
20 Nov 2017
Zanu-PF's chief whip said on Monday that it had support, pledged from 230 of about 260 of its members, to go ahead with impeachment proceedings against President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday.
Lovemore Matuke said the party would try to wrap up the impeachment proceedings as soon as possible this week, but added that it was likely to take three days.
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Zimbabwe's Mugabe, facing impeachment, calls Cabinet meeting
Zimbabwe's ruling party on Monday ordered impeachment proceedings to begin against longtime President Robert Mugabe and expressed confidence that he could be voted out within two days, while the world's oldest head of state ignored the party's midday deadline to resign and instead summoned ministers to a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday morning.
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Zimbabwe's longtime President Robert Mugabe has called a Cabinet meeting for Tuesday morning even as the ruling party moves to impeach him when Parliament resumes on the same day.
The notice from Mugabe's chief secretary says the meeting will be at State House at 09:00 and all ministers "should attend".
Mugabe ignored the ruling party's midday Monday deadline to resign or face impeachment.
The ruling party accuses Mugabe of "allowing his wife to
usurp government powers" and says the 93-year-old leader "is too old and
cannot even walk without help."Mugabe remains under house arrest
after the military moved in last week, but the military is taking pains
to avoid accusations of a coup. - AP
20 Nov 2017
A Zimbabwean Cabinet minister close to first lady Grace Mugabe, who went silent after the military moved in last week, has reappeared on Twitter, saying he is "relatively fine outside the country".
Minister of Higher Education Jonathan Moyo had been said to be detained along with a number of other ministers as the military pursued people it called "criminals" accused of hurting the country's economy.
Moyo, the most outspoken of the unpopular first lady's allies, says he is outside Zimbabwe with "at least 50 others" who include lawmakers and ruling party officials.
Opposition to Grace Mugabe's positioning to succeed her husband led the military to move in last week and put the president under house arrest.
20 Nov 2017
'Your time is
up', veterans tell Mugabe
The military appears to favour a voluntary resignation for Mugabe, one of Africa's last remaining liberation leaders, to maintain a veneer of legality in the political transition and avoid accusations of a coup.
Mugabe, in turn, is likely using whatever leverage he has left to try to preserve his legacy or even protect himself and his family from possible prosecution. Amid the political confusion, the government on Monday urged Cabinet ministers to pursue business as usual.
Meanwhile, opposition activists and the influential liberation war veterans association announced more demonstrations to pressure Mugabe to go.
"Your time is up," veterans association leader Chris Mutsvangwa said at a press conference.
He suggested that the military was still beholden to Mugabe and compelled to protect him because he is officially their "commander in chief."
The war veterans' association will go to court to argue that Mugabe is "derelict of his executive duty", Mutsvangwa said.
20 Nov 2017
Grace - Mugabe's downfall
The main charge against the 93-year-old Mugabe is "allowing his wife to usurp government powers" and that "he is too old and cannot even walk without help," Mangwana told reporters.
He said the ruling Zanu-PF party needs the backing of the MDC opposition group to have enough votes in Parliament but "we have talked to them and they are supporting us".
Zimbabweans were stunned by Mugabe's defiance during a national address on Sunday night in which the increasingly isolated president, put under military house arrest last week, had been expected to step down.
Mugabe did acknowledge "a whole range of
concerns" about the chaotic state of the government and the economy, which
has collapsed since he took power after independence from white minority rule
in 1980. - AFP
20 Nov 2017
Zimbabwe's ruling party expressed confidence on Monday that longtime President Robert Mugabe could be impeached within two days, while the world's oldest head of state ignored the party's midday deadline to resign.
As ruling party lawmakers
began meeting on impeachment plans, deputy secretary for legal affairs Paul
Mangwana said they would move a motion for impeachment on Tuesday and set up a
parliamentary committee, and on Wednesday the committee would report back to
all lawmakers and "we vote him out."- AFP
20 Nov 2017
Tsvangirai has little faith in Zanu-PF saving Zimbabwe
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai says he doubts the ability of the ruling party to solve the country's challenges amid efforts to oust President Robert Mugabe.
Tsvangirai, in a statement on his party's website, said the ruling Zanu-PF party has been hurt by factional battles and that it appears to have differences with the military over how to handle the confusing situation.
Mugabe has defied calls to resign immediately. The ruling party is discussing impeachment.
The opposition leader says the upheaval could undermine the opportunity for a "fresh start" after moves by the military and others against Mugabe.
"It would be inimical to progress and the future of the country if all this action was about power retention at all costs," Tsvangirai says.
He adds that elections scheduled for next year should be internationally supervised as a way to ensure political legitimacy. - AFP
20 Nov 2017
Zimbabweans gathered in Africa Unity Square opposite the Parliament on Monday to call for President Robert Mugabe to step down.
The gathering was a prayer meeting that's planned for every day this week until Mugabe steps down, with calls for churches, civil society and ordinary people to be included in the talks for an inclusive government.
Doug Coltart, one of the organisers of the gathering and the organiser of #ThisFlag, said they had claimed the space opposite parliament, and would be meeting there daily.
"We want Mugabe to step down. We want him to go peacefully," he said.
20 Nov 2017
Regional geopolitics could pave the way for change in SA
On 13 April 1993, President Nelson Mandela addressed South Africa, calling for calm and for the efforts toward a peaceful transition from apartheid rule to continue. The seminal speech was delivered to avert the threat of a descent into outright civil war when Chris Hani was gunned down in front of his Dawn Park home three days earlier.
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Military chiefs and senior figures in the ruling ZANU-PF party have been examining ways in which they can punish the Mugabe family and seize the assets they accumulated over the last four decades.
The Mugabes own more land than any other individual in Zimbabwe ever has - both before and after independence in 1980. - The Times
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Mugabe impeachment: Zanu-PF MPs summoned
Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party has reportedly summoned its members of parliament "as the former liberation movement moved to trigger a process to impeach beleaguered President Robert Mugabe".
20 Nov 2017
Mugabe has lost public, party support, Britain says
Robert Mugabe has "lost the support of the people and of his party", Britain said Monday after the Zimbabwean president insisted he still holds power despite a military takeover and demands to quit.
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Robert Mugabe has "lost the support of the people and of his party", Britain said on Monday after the Zimbabwean president insisted he still holds power despite a military takeover and demands to quit.
"As last night's events showed, we don't yet know how developments in Zimbabwe are going to play out," Prime Minister Theresa May's official spokesperson said.
"But what does appear clear is that Mugabe has lost the support of the people and of his party. "We would say that while the situation remains uncertain, we would appeal for everyone to refrain from violence. We hope to see a peaceful and swift resolution to the situation."
In a televised address late on Sunday, Mugabe defied expectations he would quit, pitching the country into a second week of political crisis.
The speech provoked anger and disbelief among many Zimbabweans, fuelling concerns that the 93-year-old veteran leader could face a violent backlash.
Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from British rule in 1980. - AFP
20 Nov 2017
Two senior political sources said Mugabe agreed to resign on Sunday but ZANU-PF did not want him to quit in front of the military, an act that would have made its intervention look like a coup.
"It would have looked extremely bad if he had resigned in front of those generals. It would have created a huge amount of mess," one senior source within ZANU-PF said. - Reuters
20 Nov 2017
'Unworried' Mugabe was busy 'munching mealies as Zimbabweans protested against him'
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was reportedly not bothered by the recent demonstrations calling for him to step down.
20 Nov 2017
"Relations between China and Mugabe have been quite fractious over the past year and a half, and the current situation is going to make things worse," said Derek Matyszak, a Harare-based senior researcher at the Institute for Security Studies.
China is unhappy about Mugabe's mismanagement of Zimbabwe's economy and is believed to favour as his successor, Emmerson Mnangagwa, who's seen as more of an "economic pragmatist", Matyszak said. - AP
20 Nov 2017
SADC leaders set to meet in Angola over Zimbabwe crisis
The Southern African Development Community is expected to discuss Zimbabwe’s political crisis in Luanda, Angola on Tuesday, the presidency has said in a statement.
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Zambian President Edgar Lungu has sent former president Kenneth Kaunda to Harare to try to convince President Robert Mugabe to step down in a "dignified exit" after the military seized power last week.
"Dr Kaunda used the presidential jet and has already arrived in Harare," a senior government source told Reuters.
Kaunda is also 93 years old. - Reuters
20 Nov 2017
Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, shows Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe the way during a welcome ceremony outside the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China.
Under Robert Mugabe’s decades-long rule over Zimbabwe, China grew into one of its biggest investors, trading partners and diplomatic allies.
Now, as the African nation appears on the verge of its first transition of power since independence, Beijing is poised to be among the biggest winners. (Ng Han Guan, AP, File)
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Newspapers are held down by rocks to stop them blowing away at a news stand in Harare, Zimbabwe.
Long-time President Robert Mugabe ignored a 12:00 deadline set by the ruling party to step down or face impeachment proceedings, while Zimbabweans stunned by his lack of resignation during a national address vowed more protests to make him leave. (Ben Curtis, AP)
20 Nov 2017
20 Nov 2017
Noon deadline for defiant Mugabe passes as Zimbabwe crisis deepens
Robert Mugabe faced the threat of impeachment by his own party on Monday, after his shock insistence he still holds power in Zimbabwe despite a military takeover and a noon deadline to end his 37-year autocratic rule
20 Nov 2017