Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has agreed to stand down and a resignation letter has been prepared to that effect, CNN reported on Monday.
Citing a source, CNN said the army generals had given into many of Mugabe’s demands, including full immunity for himself and his wife Grace — who had harbored ambitions of succeeding him, and that he would keep his private property.
Pressure was mounting from all sides on the 93-year-old, the only leader Zimbabwe has known since its independence in 1980, to swiftly end the confusion that has gripped the country since the de facto military coup last Wednesday.
Mugabe stunned Zimbabweans in a rambling late night Sunday television address by avoiding any mention of resignation, pledging instead to preside over a congress next month of ZANU-PF, which had sacked him as its leader only hours earlier.
ZANU-PF had given him less than 24 hours to quit as head of state or face impeachment, an attempt to secure a peaceful end to his tenure after the de facto military coup.
The party’s central committee had earlier named Emmerson Mnangagwa as its new leader. It was Mugabe’s sacking of Mnangagwa as his vice-president — paving the way for his wife Grace to succeed him — that triggered the army to seize control.
On Saturday, thousands of Zimbabweans had taken to the streets calling for him to go.
But in a bizarre and rambling speech, Mugabe instead insisted he was going nowhere, and that he would see his political party Zanu-PF through its congress in a few weeks.
Zimbabweans who had been glued to state television to watch the speech live came out into the streets afterward, some in shock.
