Zimbabwe's ruling party prepares to oust Mugabe after 37 years in power


Zimbabwe's ruling Zanu-PF party prepared Sunday to remove President Robert Mugabe from office nearly four decades after he first took power in 1980. The decision comes after the Zimbabwean military put Mugabe, 93, and his wife Grace under house arrest earlier this week, prompting thousands of Zimbabweans to take to the streets over the weekend demanding an end to Mugabe's regime.
Zanu-PF has removed Mugabe as party leader and expelled Grace, a would-be successor, from the party as well. Emmerson Mnangagwa, who served as Zimbabwe's vice president until Mugabe fired him this month, was chosen as the new party head. "He has been expelled," one delegate told Reuters. "Mnangagwa is our new leader."
Mugabe has so far refused resignation deals offered by the military, announcing by proxy his willingness "to die" rather than leave office.
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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.
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