Mnangagwa addresses Mugabe's coup claims

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on Friday said the country ‘has moved on’ in response to claims by former President Robert Mugabe that he was ousted in an illegal coup. It was Mugabe’s first public statement since his resignation in November, which was triggered by a brief military takeover and the threat of a no-confidence motion tabled in Parliament by his own Zanu-PF party. A BusinessLIVE report notes that Mnangagwa said Mugabe ‘is entitled to express himself freely, as is the case for any private citizen’. He stressed that his government ‘continues to honour all its obligations towards the former President’s welfare and benefits, as provided for under the constitution’.

Mugabe has been urged to approach the courts if he believes Mnangagwa's administration is not legitimate. The Sunday Mail newspaper quoted presidential spokesperson George Charamba as saying that it was absurd for the nonagenarian ‘to place himself above the entire State and polity, and arrogate power to bestow legitimacy’. ‘I can't see how an order which is allegedly unconstitutional gets cleansed by a meeting of two individuals over a cup of coffee,’ he said.