Zimbabwean citizens and delegates celebrated following the expulsion of President Robert Mugabe from the country’s ruling party on Sunday after 37 years in power.
ZANU-PF fired the 93-year old Mugabe on Sunday and gave him less than 24 hours to either resign has head of state or face impeachment.
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In unbelievable scenes, the announcement was met by cheers from the 200 delegates packed into ZANU-PF’s Harare headquarters.
Mugabe’s support has dwindled in the four days since the army seized power in an attempt to force a peaceful end to his almost four decades in power with a de facto coup.
Mugabe, the only leader the southern African nation has known since independence from Britain in 1980, was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the deputy he fired this month in a move which triggered Tuesday’s military intervention.
Mugabe was known by many names, including the “Grand Old Man” of African politics and the “Thinking Man’s Guerrilla.” While he was once known throughout the continent as an anti-colonial liberation hero, he would later proudly declare that he held a “degree in violence.”
Political opposition to his rule grew in the 1990s as the economy deteriorated, during which time Mugabe seized thousands of white-owned farms, detained his political opponents and unleashed security forces to crush dissent.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands of people flooded the streets of Zimbabwean capital Harare, singing, dancing and hugging soldiers in an outpouring of elation at Mugabe’s expected ejection.
With files from Reuters.
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