I am a veteran of the struggle for freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe. I seem to have been at it for a century, but I have never seen such scenes in the country. First Saturday when spontaneously millions of Zimbabweans demonstrated for Mugabe to go. Then Sunday when the Central Committee of the Zanu PF Party (however constituted) voted to remove both Mr. and Mrs. Mugabe from their positions in the Party. Then the let down that evening when Mr. Mugabe came on Television and said he was going nowhere, he was “President” and “Commander in Chief”.
The City of Harare woke up on Monday and it was very quiet all day – fewer cars on the roads and little business going on. Towards noon on Tuesday people started gathering at African Unity Square for prayers and we concluded meetings of our (MDC) leadership to decide what to do in Parliament that afternoon. When I arrived at Parliament, the entrance was surrounded by media and a crowd of several thousand was gathered over the road in the Square.
Inside we started the process of impeachment with the Speaker reading out the motion and the charges against Mugabe, then the rules for the special joint sittings of the House and the Senate. The international press must have been amused by the tradition and the ceremonial nature of the process at that stage. Once he was done, we stood down and then left Parliament to go to the venue for the Joint Sittings which was the Harare Conference center. By 16.30 we were seated with perhaps 2000 people in the gallery.
At 16.45 the bells were rung and exactly on 16.50 the Speaker and the President of the Senate walked in and we started the proceedings. The two Members putting up the motion, one a Senator and one a MDC Member of Parliament, then proposed the motion to impeach. The debate began and about 17.30 and the Speaker interrupted proceedings to announce that he had received a letter from the President. This was then read out and when it came to the part about him “tendering his resignation with immediate effect”, the place exploded. It took several minutes to restore order and then he suspended the session indefinitely. We filed out to find that the entire country was pouring out onto the streets and a massive street celebration was underway.
The main result of these mass demonstrations and events is that the international and regional communities now know that what has transpired has the support of the great majority of all Zimbabweans. The fact that it was the army that was the trigger, has little significance providing they go back to barracks when the new President is sworn in – something I expect to happen this week (on Friday). This gives, whatever government comes in over the next few days, very little breathing space before it has to deal with the very tough issues that are on the table for the new regime.
First of these is the national Budget which was supposed to be presented to Parliament on Thursday the 23rd November. The country will run a huge fiscal deficit this year after the US$1,4 billion deficit in 2016. The economy is shrinking, and inflation is suddenly accelerating. The budget is the only policy instrument available to the government and whatever was planned by the Minister of Finance (who is now in jail) will have to be reviewed and changes made. We have until the end of January to get this done – but there is a lot to do and this will take some time.