Exit Mugabe

With his ouster from the presidency of Zimbabwe last week, old man Robert Mugabe’s dream of dynastic reign in a republican setting came to a rude closure. His iron grip on power was broken and his hope of posthumous rule through forced spousal succession – what his former allies in the war veterans association dubbed “coup by marriage certificate” – was upended.   

The 93-year-old had the record of being the world’s oldest president, and that isn’t counting his being the most enduring ruler in Africa’s peculiar club of power gnomes, having held fort for 37 years. His sole peer in the cohort is Angola’s Eduardo dos Santos, who stood down from office a few months back. Mugabe had been the only leader his country ever had since independence from Britain.

The nonagenarian actually planned to hold out for much longer. He was already served up by Zimbabwe’s ruling party as its candidate in the general election due next year. The ticket positioned him as the world’s oldest contender on the hustings – and that, without formidable challenge from the country’s splintered opposition. And with the inexorable swamp-in of degenerative elements of mortality, Mugabe schemed to install his overly ambitious but upstarting wife, Grace, as successor. He progressively sidelined veterans of the anti-colonial struggle like him, whose credentials resonated with the power elite, so to entrench his wife who had nix exposure to that historical cause. At the last count, he sacked his long-time ally and next ranking member of the ruling party, Emmerson Mnangagwa, as deputy president at the open bidding of Grace. His swing was widely construed as a ploy to install the wife in Mnangagwa’s office and, thus, position her as heir to the presidency.

Curtains fell on the Mugabe universe last week when soldiers rolled out their tanks to seize the country’s nerve centres. The same military had over the years been the spine of his political clout and sustained affront on basic democracy norms, obviously owing to a shared history of resistance to Britain’s colonial hegemony that was cast off in 1980. Mugabe at Independence assumed republican leadership of his country, but subsequently slipped into despotic trenches where he hoped to cement a dynastic reign over the country. What he seemed not to have reckoned on is that for every representative who veers off into the narrow and self-serving corridor of despotism, there always comes a breaking point where co-travellers get to reappraise the journey. And when that reappraisal shows the despot up as too far gone on his solo trip, he gets taken off track, unless he has formidable structures of his own to overawe the original base.

Mugabe crossed that breaking point last week, and he apparently didn’t have a counter-structure when his erstwhile power base – the military – moved to cut him out. His final point of departure with the military, as it seemed, was his emasculation of liberation struggle veterans within the ruling party, which peaked with the removal penultimate week of 75-year-old Mnangagwa as deputy president, just so to empower a factional band of youths loyal to 52-year-old Grace. He had in 2015 sacked another deputy president, Joyce Mujuru, without incurring repercussions; but there is always a red line not to be crossed.

The putsch in Zimbabwe left unique imprints on global benchmarks for the practice of democracy and tolerance level for its interruption by sleigh of arms. For instance, coups are by their very nature ambush crafts; Zimbabwe’s is the first in common knowledge of which advance notice was openly served before it was carried out. The closest in comparison was Egypt’s 2013 coup where Army chief Fattah el-Sisi pressed then President Mohamed Morsi to rein in polar revolts that had pitched the country on a cliffhanger before soldiers struck. Less than 48 hours before the act, the Zimbabwean military chief announced to a press conference in Harare that his squad was poised to strike if the purge of Independence veterans within the ruling party continued. But the jackboots couldn’t wait for that warning to register before they butted in.

Of course, the military in Zimbabwe has insisted its intervention was a cleansing act of sorts, not a coup, and it has managed to conduct the country’s affairs since then as a dicey balancing act. Whereas it effectively severed Mugabe’s hold on power and kept him under house arrest while negotiating his future with him, the old man was retained in nominal status of leadership, such that he made a public appearance on Friday to open the graduation ceremony at Zimbabwe’s Open University in Harare where he is chancellor. Word as at the weekend was, he was doubling down on remaining president until the upcoming elections.

But Zimbabweans, almost without exception, were euphoric over the military intervening to terminate Mugabe’s autocracy that has seen their country from a great promise of prosperity at Independence to the basket case it is now. Perhaps in effect, the international community seemed thrown out of step on the standard tack of rejecting putsches against constitutional governance for whatever reason offhand. And that is really unhelpful for securing the culture of democracy against military adventurers in restive climes like we have in Africa.

‘For every representative who veers off into the narrow corridor of despotism, there comes a breaking point where co-travellers reappraise the journey’

In response to the Zimbabwe putsch, Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari glibly called for preservation of the constitutional order, which the military action seemed anything but. Not that he was alone. The leader of Zimbabwe’s neighbour and regional powerhouse, South African President Jacob Zuma, initially rejected “unconstitutional changes” to the government in Harare offhand; but he dialed back soon after to canvass amicable resolution of the impasse, while urging the Zimbabwe defence forces to “ensure...maintenance of peace.” He has since headed up regional mediation efforts to ease Mugabe out. Also, the African Union (AU), which in the past summarily kicked out countries like Mali and Mauritania because of military coups, is quavering for now on declaring Zimbabwe’s as a coup and acting accordingly.

Further afield, former colonial overlord, Britain, just about cheered the removal of Mugabe, even though by force of arms. United Kingdom Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, in a statement to the House of Commons last week, flayed the old man’s legacy and suggested that a transition offered a “moment of hope” for Zimbabweans. The United States stopped barely short of an endorsement. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged quick transition to civil rule, but also said the crisis offered Zimbabwe an opportunity to reroute its course.

And the United Nations (UN), as at the weekend, was unsure what to make of the Zimbabwe experience. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported Secretary General Antonio Guterres to have described the situation as confusing, saying: “I never like to see the military involved in politics, but I have to recognise it’s a confusing situation. I hope first of all that there is no bloodshed, that this is done peacefully. I hope that (it) will…lead to a political and democratic solution, and that the next elections that are scheduled are free and fair elections for the people of Zimbabwe to choose their own future.”

The point here is, Mugabe did so much damage to the economy and democratic culture in his country that the method necessitated to get him out now in some way imperils democracy across the African continent. That is the legacy the nonagenarian is bequeathing to posterity.