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by zimzim 3139 days ago
background: President is old and have succession problems. In recent years his wife trying to grab more and more power to be the next president but not everyone in the ruling party like that. last week she (from the mouth of the president) fired "number 2" in the country. since then everyone who was "friend" with number 2 was fired too. when they tried to get rid of the army general (friend of number 2) he refused to leave his office in claim that president wife doing undemocratic things. yesterday he did the "takeover". its not yet clear if the president will switched with the number 2 guy (the friend of the general).
3 comments
erikb 3139 days ago
Really interested to read more about this. This is really the most critical point of the succession question: Who can get the military to follow him. Both the highest general and the government leader have strong claims for military leadership and there is no pure logical answer if highest general and government leader don't agree. All depends on what happens between the different parties.
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Flenser 3139 days ago
There's a good summary here: https://www.thezimbabwean.co/2017/11/standoff-zimbabwe-strug...

From today: listen to this from around 8:10 (it starts at 6am, so skip to 2:10) http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09drjhz

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anon989 3139 days ago
>"when they tried to get rid of the army general (friend of number 2) he refused to leave his office"

That was never confirmed

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zimzim 3139 days ago
Its not the kind of things you can get confirmation. He was called a traitor in official letter yesterday.
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anon989 3139 days ago
He was called a traitor after issuing a statement that was a veiled threat against Mugabe. You are spreading inaccurate information
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norswap 3139 days ago
That was my interpretation too, until the end of the article when they said the military men who seized national TV actually spoke harshly of the general close to number 2.

Those were the same military men who said that the military had custody of Mugabe, so it's somewhat confusing.

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anon989 3139 days ago
The military is behind Chiwenga (friend of number 2), they only spoke harshly of, 'the criminal elements within ZanuPF. By 'criminal elements' they are referring to the G40 (anti- number 2 camp who got number 2 fired). The military has detained a lot of these 'criminal elements' and apparently Mugabe is also under 'house arrest'
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