Zimbabwean President, Robert
Mugabe, has agreed to stand down after 37 years in power, CNN reported on
Monday, after he avoided any mention of resignation in a rambling national
address on Sunday night.
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| Mugabe and Wife, Grace |
A resignation letter has now been
drafted, CNN said, citing sources familiar with his negotiations with the
generals, who seized power in Harare last week.
Under the terms of the deal,
Mugabe and his wife Grace would be granted full immunity, CNN said.
Pressure was now mounting from
all sides on the 93-year-old, the only leader Zimbabwe has known since its
independence in 1980, to swiftly end the confusion that has gripped the country
since the de facto coup last Wednesday.
Mugabe stunned Zimbabweans in a
rambling late night Sunday television address by avoiding any mention of
resignation, pledging instead to preside over a congress next month of ZANU-PF,
which had sacked him as its leader only hours earlier.
Moments after Mugabe’s address,
war veterans’ leader Chris Mutsvangwa said they would lead public protests in
the streets of Harare.
Mugabe was also given a deadline
of noon (1000 GMT) on Monday to stand down or the ruling ZANU-PF will begin
impeachment proceedings against him.
Parliament does not sit on
Mondays so any impeachment would have to wait until Tuesday, although a vote
may not necessarily take place the same day.
Two senior government sources
said late on Sunday that Mugabe had agreed to resign but did not know details
of his departure.
There has been speculation that
he read the wrong speech in his live television address on Sunday or skipped
over passages about standing down.
ZANU-PF’s central committee had
earlier named Emmerson Mnangagwa as its new leader.
It was Mugabe’s sacking of
Mnangagwa as his vice-president — paving the way for his wife Grace to succeed
him — that triggered the army to seize control.
On Saturday, hundreds of
thousands took to the streets of Harare to celebrate Mugabe’s expected downfall
and hail a new era for their country.
The huge crowds in Harare have
given a quasi-democratic veneer to the army’s intervention, backing its
assertion that it was merely affecting a constitutional transfer of power,
rather than a plain coup, which would risk a diplomatic backlash.
Armored vehicles manned by
soldiers were still stationed on some street corners in the capital on Monday.
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