Zimbabwe’s former leader
Robert Mugabe said he never thought new President Emmerson Mnangagwa
would turn against him and denounced Mnangagwa’s move to oust him last
year as a coup, in an interview broadcast on Thursday.
Mugabe,
94, ruled Zimbabwe from independence in 1980 until he stepped down
under pressure from Mnangagwa’s allies in the army in November.
“I
never thought he whom I had nurtured and brought into government and
whose life I worked so hard in prison to save as he was threatened with
hanging, that one day he would be the man who would turn against me,”
Mugabe said in the interview with South African state broadcaster SABC
from Harare.
Mnangagwa was convicted of sabotage under white
minority rule and sentenced to death. But he was spared the noose
because it was deemed that he was a minor when he had committed the
crime.
Mugabe said he was ousted in a “military takeover” and that Mnangagwa had assumed the presidency illegally.
“I
don’t hate Emmerson, I brought him into government. But he must be
proper, he is improper where he is. Illegal,” Mugabe said. “We must undo
this disgrace, which we have imposed on ourselves. We don’t deserve
it.”
Since his fall from power, Mugabe has stayed at his
Harare mansion with his wife Grace. His ousting was the culmination of a
power struggle between Mnangagwa and Grace Mugabe, who was being
groomed by her husband as his potential successor. Mugabe was granted
immunity from prosecution and assured that his safety will be protected
in his home country under a deal that led to his resignation.
From Reuters