Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, appointed senior military officials to top posts in his new cabinet and chose a veteran cabinet minister to head the finance ministry.

Mnangagwa was sworn in as president last Friday after 93-year-old Robert Mugabe quit under pressure from the army.

He named Patrick Chinamasa as finance minister, Air Marshal Perrance Shiri land minister, and Major General Sibusiso Moyo foreign minister, among other appointments.

He also brought back many faces from the Robert Mugabe-era, which could disappoint Zimbabweans who had been expecting a broad-based government and a break with the past.

Chinamasa, a former finance minister in Mugabe’s government, moved to a newly-created ministry of cyber security in a reshuffle last month. The cyber portfolio has been folded into the information ministry headed by a former deputy minister in Mugabe’s government, Supa Mandiwanzira.

Mnangagwa is under pressure to deliver, especially on the economy, which is in the grip of severe foreign currency shortages that have seen banks failing to give customers cash.

He told heads of government ministries on Tuesday that he was putting together a “leaner” government, which would see the merging of some departments to enhance efficiency.

(Source: Reuters)

A Zimbabwean high court has ruled that the military action leading to former President Robert Mugabe’s resignation was “constitutional” and not a coup.

“Actions by the Zimbabwe Defense Forces to stop the usurping of power by those close to former president Robert Mugabe are constitutional,” state-run Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) media quoted officials of the top court as saying.

Referring to Mugabe’s wife Grace and her supporters, the court ruled that the takeover was “to ensure the non-elected individual do not exercise powers that can only be exercised by (those) elected.”

The tribunal also noted that Mugabe’s firing of his former deputy, Emmerson Mnangagwa, over a power struggle between him as his wife earlier this month had been against the law.

On November 23, Mugabe finally succumbed to pressures and stepped down after 37 years in power.

The resignation came several days after army chiefs put military vehicles on the streets of the capital, Harare and placed the 93-year-old leader under house arrest. Many Zimbabweans celebrated the end of Mugabe’s rule.

A day after, his sacked deputy, Mnangagwa, was sworn in as the country’s interim president, vowing sweeping changes and seeking to attract foreign investment to revive the moribund economy in the south African country.

Mnangagwa is Zimbabwe’s second president since the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1981.

Source: Presstv

Lawmakers predominantly from Cameroon’s Anglophone region on Thursday disrupted parliamentary proceedings in protest over the crisis in their region.

Members of Parliament from the main opposition Social Democratic Front (SDF) party threatened that there will be no business in the house till the ‘Anglophone crisis’ was tabled for debate.

Amid chanting of slogans and singing, the protesting MPs asked how many more people were going to be killed by the Paul Biya-led government.

Security forces last month stopped a planned demonstration in the port city of Douala organised by the SDF. The protest was said to be in solidarity with the embittered Anglophone regions.

People in the said regions have long decried marginalization by the majority French speaking part of the country. An attempted independence declaration under the Ambazonia Republic was met with armed force leading to deaths, mass arrests and injuries.

The government has described the secessionists as terrorists and also issued international arrest warrant in respect of 16 leaders of the secessionists. President Paul Biya has condemned the violence and called for dialogue but concrete efforts in that direction have yet to materialize.

Source: Africa News

The multitudes turned up yesterday in great numbers in Harare to pay adoration to the man taking over as President of Zimbabwe from Robert Mugabe, Emerson Mnangagwa. After 37 years under a brutal despot, the people of Zimbabwe, can be forgiven for their colourful celebrations following the end of a bitter era.

From the happenings of the last week, one can only conclude that Robert Mugabe had virtually no support in his country. After the generals put him under house arrest over nine days ago, nearly all the MPs and rank and file of his own party, the Zanu-PF voiced their discontent with him and his failed policies. Even the influential war veterans spoke out vociferously against their comrade.

One question that comes to mind repeatedly over the last few days is how he managed to win the last elections so convincingly? In the the last election in 2013, Mugabe won 61% of the vote. That was a landslide victory. His Zanu-PF party also won 160 of the 210 seats in the national assembly. An astonishing result. In fact it is laughable that whilst western election observers were not allowed in the country, African Union had monitors in place during the last election and they said ‘‘the election could have been handled better, but that initial reports indicated a fair election had occurred’’.

Mugabe was his party’s candidate for next year’s general election in which he was expected to carry another landslide victory. These facts are beyond belief but true. How can a man who won elections so convincingly only four years ago and was expected to carry another landslide next year be so unpopular in such a short period of time? He made one grave error of judgement, sacking his vice president. Had he not done that trying to pave the way for his wife to succeed him, he still would have been president today.

The fact is that a sizeable majority of these ZANU-PF MPs, war veterans and party militants not forgetting the president-in-waiting were accomplices in Mugabe’s election rigging machinery. Why were they involved in such large scale deception and hence co-conspirators in ruining their country?

It’s unbelievable that until the generals stepped in last week with the world’s first ever coup-that-wasn’t-a-coup, on the surface Mugabe exerted great power and control. His notorious wife, Gucci Grace also wielded influence and openly and shamelessly conversed her ambitions to succeed her husband and all appeared normal.

This might be an eye-opener that in many countries, where the ruling party, clans and elites appear happy in public with their leader, it does teach us that they might be hiding a deep sense of melancholy underneath and will happily take the opportunity to kick them out when need arises.

By Asu Ashu Isong, London

The world sat in front of hundreds of millions of TV screens yesterday and watched Robert Mugabe make a speech regarding his future and that of Zimbabwe. The expectations from east to west, north to south were the same. Reuters, long believed to be the leader in news scoops had fed the other leading news agencies including Cameroon Concord News Group that the old fox was about to announce his exit from the international and political scene with dignity. We were all fooled.

It seems to be a familiar pattern on the world scene that news agencies these days get their predictions utterly erroneous. The election of Trump and Brexit were predicted inaccurately and incorrectly reported. As I watched the TV screens and spoke to Cameroon Concord News Group Southern Africa Editor live from Harare, nothing could have prepared me for what I was witnessing.

I witnessed a fragile old man, 93 years of age ramble; ramble on and on and on. At some stages of his speech, he sounded like someone who had suffered and was recovering from a stroke. Earlier in the day, the political party which he founded, and has led for 37 years, the ZANU-PF had dismissed him as leader. He had been given till today noon by the party to step down as the president of Zimbabwe or face the degradation of impeachment. His speech to the nation was seen as a platform for the old fox to announce his submission and ensuing peaceful retirement.

We waited for the punch line announcing his resignation which never came. We have now been reliably informed that the generals who led the move to remove him from office were told he was going to make a speech announcing his resignation but Mugabe refused to show them a copy of his speech. Cameroon Concord News understands from our Southern Africa editor in Harare that the Generals asked to see his speech but Mugabe emphatically refused.

As I watched the speech, I noticed like the hundreds of millions who did the same around the world that he was too old and in many occasions couldn’t follow the pages coherently. It was a pity and an embarrassment for someone who was once a great leader. I wondered what drives him to believe that if he didn’t have the mental coordination to read a written speech, he had all the faculties in place to run a nation. He appeared just too ancient and incapable.

The party which he founded has now disowned him. The overwhelming majority of his people don’t want him to continue as leader after almost four decades.  Based on what we saw yesterday, Mugabe hasn’t got the mental ability and dynamism to make day to day decisions as a leader but he insist on carrying on as the president of his country.

We thought we had seen the last chapter of this drama, but it looks like Comrade Robert Mugabe has no intension of making that happen. Those close to him say bushiness is what took him to the top. The big question now is if that is what will bring him down spectacularly.

By Asu Ashu

Cameroon Concord News

London

Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga has urged international community to intervene in what he has called his country’s “election crisis” as sporadic clashes between police and protesters keeps claiming more lives.

Odinga said Sunday that at least 31 people had been killed since he returned from overseas trip on Friday, adding that the situation needed an urgent “international intervention” to stop government from trampling on rights of opposition members.

“This is state-sponsored thuggery,” Odinga said, adding that his country was being pushed to the precipice”.

The opposition leader, who protested his loss in the August presidential election and then boycotted a rerun last month, said people who had lined up the roads Friday to welcome him home from engagements in the US and Britain were confronted by police and 18 were shot dead.

His remarks also came after residents of a Nairobi slum protested the killing of at least 13 people in an overnight attack by unknown gunmen. Police has put the death toll of the clashes at four, but people attending the mortuary said 13 bodies bearing bullet wounds had been brought in. police said that five people had been killed in the Friday stampede before Odinga’s arrival. But mortuary records corroborated 18 people were dead.

Tensions remain high in Kenya, a major ally of the West and a an economic powerhouse in the Horn of Africa region, since a Supreme Court ruling in September which nullified President Uhuru Kenyatta victory in original votes. Civil society activists and a politician are again challenging Kenyatta’s win in October repeat of the election. A decision by the court is expected on Monday as Odinga insists that irregularities that led to the nullification of the first round remained the rerun.

Culled from Presstv

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe arrived at a university graduation ceremony in the capital on Friday, his first public appearance since a military seizure of power that political sources say is aimed at ending his 37 years in office.

Wearing a blue and yellow academic gown and mortar board hat, the 93-year-old sat in large wooden chair at the front the hall. He was greeted by ululations from the crowd as he declared the ceremony open.

Earlier Friday, Zimbabwe’s military claimed that it was making “significant progress” in talks with Mugabe for his departure from power while it pursues and arrests allies of the president and his wife.

Talks with Mugabe continued, the military said in a statement reported by the state-run Herald newspaper and Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation.

Zimbabwe’s military is “currently engaging with the Commander-in-Chief President Robert Mugabe on the way forward and will advise the nation of the outcome as soon as possible,” the statement said.

“Significant progress has been made in their operation to weed out criminals around President Mugabe,” it said, adding that the military had already arrested some although others remained at large. Those sought had been “committing crimes that were causing social and economic suffering in Zimbabwe.”

The military is seeking cabinet ministers and other top officials who had been associates of first lady, Grace Mugabe, part of a clique dubbed the G40 because many were in their 40s and 50s. They are of a different generation from the one that fought for independence from white minority rule.

Army troops and armored vehicles continued to patrol the capital, Harare, as Zimbabweans went about their daily business.

Ousted VP back in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe’s former vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose sacking last week triggered the military’s takeover, has returned to the country, an aide told AFP Friday.

Mnangagwa, who is a leading candidate to succeed President Mugabe, flew back to Harare on Thursday after nearly a week abroad, as army chiefs and the president met to negotiate Mugabe’s exit from office.

The generals took over late on Tuesday after Mnangagwa was sacked by the president and Mugabe’s wife emerged in prime position to succeed her increasingly frail husband.

Government TV showed Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, dressed in a navy blue blazer and grey trousers standing alongside army chief General Constantino Chiwenga.

(Source: Agencies)

Three people were shot dead Friday in Nairobi, an AFP reporter saw, as police dispersed thousands of opposition supporters welcoming home their leader Raila Odinga from an overseas trip.

The three men, all with bullet wounds in the upper body, were seen lying on the road in Muthurwa, a city suburb where riot police armed with tear gas, water cannons and rifles clashed with stone throwing protesters, part of angry battles that lasted throughout the day.

Odinga won an unprecedented court victory overturning the result of the August 8 presidential poll, leading to a rerun last month that he then boycotted claiming it would not be free and fair.

Kenya’s Supreme Court is due to rule Monday on whether President Uhuru Kenyatta can be sworn in for a second term or if there must be another rerun.

The dispute over this year’s presidential vote has left the country deeply divided and protests between opposition supporters and police have become commonplace.

Human rights groups estimate that close to 50 people have been killed in election-related violence, the vast majority shot by police.

Odinga returned Friday from a 10-day trip to the United States where he visited think tanks and sought support for his contention that fresh elections must be held, supervised by an overhauled election board.

His National Super Alliance (NASA) coalition had called its supporters to a “Welcome Back Baba Convoy” — using a nickname for Odinga — to join the opposition leader on his way from the airport to a planned rally in the city center.

But a heavy deployment of police blocked roads and broke up crowds surrounding the convoy, unleashing liberal amounts of tear gas, copious jets from water cannon trucks and firing shots.

The clashes caused chaos in the capital that continued late into the afternoon.

Following the rerun vote, NASA launched a “National Resistance Movement” aiming to use civil disobedience and boycotts to challenge what it considers to be Kenyatta’s illegal government.

Friday’s gathering of thousands of opposition supporters in Nairobi was the movement’s first show of strength since then, but fell short of the “million man march” promised by party leaders.

It also marked a heavier deployment of police than in the past, as they sought to block Odinga from holding a rally.

Eventually, Odinga managed to say a few words to cheering supporters from the sunroof of his car.

“Today is the day we are launching Kenya as a third republic,” he said, referring to independence from Britain in 1963 and the new constitution in 2010.

“What you have seen is a signal that a third liberation is coming soon,” Odinga said before driving away.

(Source: AFP)