Mugabe Gone

Zimbabwe has had some earth-shattering moments in recent days with the coup that wasn't a coup forcing the only president the country has ever known from power.

As I understand it, Grace Mugabe had ambitions to succeed her husband as the President of Zimbabwe and was campaigning to remove from the ruling ZANU-PF party any potential rivals, but she miscalculated when she convinced Robert Mugabe to throw his long-term right-hand-man, Emmerson Mnangagwa, out of the party.

Mnangagwa was ZANU-PF's preferred successor to Mugabe and had friends and support in the high offices of the Army, and in throwing him out of the party and accusing him of treason the Mugabe's alieated the Zimbabwean Military and the ZANU-PF party and lost the support of the people needed to remain in power.

Zimbabwe, it's people, it's ruling Political Party and it's military were prepared to put up with a lot of abuse from Uncle Bob and his wife but, it turns out, they drew the line at establishing a Mugabe Dynasty and they had no desire to be ruled by Grace.

Now Uncle Bob has had to abandon his dreams of dying in office and was forced to resign yesterday while the Zimbabwean parliament was in the middle of an impeachment process - he seems to, at last, have decided to go with some dignity rather than being thrown out.

It must be the bitterest of blows to possibly the last Big Man of Africa that now, at 93 years of age, having ruled his country since 1980 with an iron first he has been deposed and has had to witness a carinval atmostphere in the streets of Harare celebrating his downfall.

The hope, or course, is that a new leader and bring a new era and the country can finally start recovering from the utter ruination that Uncle Bob's leadership brought them to but with Mnangagwa set to take over that seems unlikely.

When a man's nickname is "the crocodile" it might be wise to be a bit wary of him.

There is a zimbabwe guy at work. He hates mugabe, but he says the new guy is just as bad.

Whidden wrote:

There is a zimbabwe guy at work. He hates mugabe, but he says the new guy is just as bad.

Mnangagwa had long been in Mugabe's inner circle, he was his spymaster and it's always believes that had a hand in the Gukurahundi massaces (though he denies it), has played a significant part in the illegal diamond trade and was censored by the UN for it, and he was in charge of ZANU-PF's 2008 election campaign which, you might remember, was an election they lost but managed to retain power through violence and vote rigging in the second round.

He is an unsavory character in his own right and I would not put any faith in him leading Zimbabwe into a new enlightened era.

yeah, the guy at work says that him and mugabe stole hundreds of millions in diamonds. and he talks about a cave they found thousands of dead bodies in. sounds like a mess over there for sure.