Harare – A senior Zanu-PF official has reportedly claimed that ex-president Robert Mugabe was forced to step down by the ruling Zanu-PF party's central committee - not by the army.
According to the state-owned Chronicle newspaper, addressing scores of Zanu-PF supporters at the Nemamwa in Masvingo, Senator Clemence Makwarimba said that Zanu-PF remained responsible for pushing the nonagenarian out of power.
Makwarimba said that the former president had allowed his powers to be usurped by his controversial wife and the generation 40 cabal.
"There are some who are lying that Cde Mugabe was removed from power by the army. It is the Zanu-PF central committee, which dismissed him as leader of the party. The war veterans called for a solidarity march and you saw that there was a sea of people in Harare in November last year. The people from all walks of life, even threatened to go to Cde Mugabe’s blue roof residence as his resignation took too long," Makwarimba was quoted as saying.
Apology
He said the ruling party with the support of opposition parties had also initiated an impeachment against the former president before he submitted his resignation to the national assembly speaker Jacob Mudenda.
This came amid reports that Mugabe, who was ousted in November last year, reportedly attacked President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his allies over the weekend, saying that they were "wrong" in removing him from power.
During a private birthday party at his Harare mansion, the 94-year-old ex-president demanded an apology from Mnangagwa for last year’s military operation that saw his 37-year rule coming to an end.
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Mugabe claimed that the ruling Zanu-PF party still wanted to work with him but he was concerned over trusting his former comrades after they "shredded the [country's] constitution", reported The Standard.
"Can they be trusted again? Can our people vote for such a Zanu-PF, a Zanu-PF which shredded the constitution? I don't know," Mugabe was quoted as saying.
