President Robert Mugabe ignored a midday deadline set by the ruling party to step down or face impeachment proceedings, while Zimbabweans vowed more protests to make him leave office.
“Arrogant Mugabe disregards Zanu PF,” one newspaper headline said.
Opposition activists and the influential liberation war veterans’ association announced more demonstrations to pressure the 93-year-old Mr Mugabe, the world’s oldest head of state, to step down after 37 years in power.
“Your time is up,” veterans’ association leader Chris Mutsvangwa said at a press conference.
“You should have the dignity and decency to spare the country of further turmoil by simply announcing your departure immediately.”
He also suggested that the military, even though it put Mr Mugabe under house arrest days ago, was still beholden to him and compelled to protect him because he is officially their “commander in chief”.
Zimbabweans were astonished that Mr Mugabe, flanked by the military in his national address on Sunday night, remained defiant.
The war veterans’ association will go to court to argue that Mr Mugabe is “derelict of his executive duty”, Mr Mutsvangwa said.
Some ruling party members said an impeachment process likely would not lead to Mr Mugabe’s immediate resignation and could take days to complete.
Mr Mugabe was stripped of his party leadership on Sunday by the Central Committee of the ruling Zanu-PF but said in his speech he would preside over a party congress next month.
The congress is expected to ratify his firing as party chief, the expulsion of the unpopular first lady and the naming of Mr Mugabe’s recently fired deputy to succeed him.
Amid the confusion, some people in the capital, Harare, are now more cautious about talking to reporters.
That contrasts with the jubilation and open condemnation of Mr Mugabe over the weekend, when the bulk of Harare’s population of roughly 1.6 million appeared to be in the streets, dancing and taking selfies with soldiers in an event backed by the military.
Mr Mugabe in his speech acknowledged “a whole range of concerns” of Zimbabweans about the chaotic state of the government and its collapsed economy, but he stopped short of what many in the southern African nation were hoping for, a statement that he was stepping down.
The once-formidable Mr Mugabe is now a virtually powerless figure, making his continued incumbency all the more unusual and extending Zimbabwe’s political limbo.
He is largely confined to his private home by the military.
Yet the president sought to project authority in his speech, which he delivered after shaking hands with security force commanders.
The army commander himself, whose threat to “step in” last week led to Mr Mugabe’s house arrest, leaned over a couple of times to help the president find his place on the page he was reading.
Mr Mugabe has discussed his possible resignation on two occasions with military commanders after they effectively took over the country on Tuesday.
The commanders were troubled by his firing of his longtime deputy and the positioning of unpopular first lady Grace Mugabe to succeed him.
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