Robert Mugabe ends 37-year Zimbabwe rule....

Robert Mugabe ends 37-year Zimbabwe rule under impeachment threat

The announcement of Robert Mugabe’s resignation sparked wild celebrations in Harare’s Unity Square where earlier thousands of people gathered to hold an ‘impeachment party’

Robert Mugabe resigned as Zimbabwe’s president on Tuesday, shortly after parliament began an impeachment process to end his nearly four decades of rule. Photo: Reuters

Harare/Johannesburg: Robert Mugabe’s near four-decade reign as Zimbabwe president ended on Tuesday, when he submitted a letter of resignation to parliament, House of Assembly speaker Jacob Mudenda said.

Mudenda announced the resignation during a joint sitting of lawmakers in Harare, the capital, called to vote on a motion of impeachment of Mugabe, who at 93 was the world’s oldest-serving leader. The announcement sparked wild celebrations in the city centre where earlier thousands of people gathered in Unity Square to hold an “impeachment party”.

Mugabe’s resignation came days after the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party fired him as its leader and ordered him to step down. Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75, who Mugabe dismissed as vice president this month, will take over as interim leader and be Zanu-PF’s presidential candidate in elections next year, the party said.

“We have fought the lion and won,” Lovemore Matuke, Zanu-PF’s chief whip, said in an interview after the announcement. A new interim president will take over in the next 48 hours, he said.

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