Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has been unceremoniously removed as the leader of the ruling Zanu-PF party – as he desperately tries to cling onto power.
The party met today – amid unconfirmed reports that the embattled 93-year-old leader has gone on hunger strike in protest at the de facto military coup earlier this week – and sacked the man who has led them for the last 37 years.
Zanu-PF then appointed the man Mugabe had sacked two weeks ago, his former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The decision to dump Mugabe means the former state security chief Mnangagwa – known as “The Crocodile” – is now in line to head an interim post-Mugabe unity government that will focus on rebuilding ties with the outside world and stabilising an economy in freefall.
The party also sacked Grace Mugabe – expelling her for life – along with Jonathan Moyo, Saviour Kasukuwere, Ignatius Chombo and Patrick Zhuwao who were seized in what many international observers view as a coup earlier this week.
