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REUTERS & DPA
HARARE
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Sunday defied his own ZANU-PF party and hundreds of thousands of protesters demanding his resignation by pledging in a television address to preside over the party's next congress in December.
Two sources one a senior member of the government, the other familiar with talks with leaders of the military had told Reuters Mugabe would use the address to announce his resignation after ZANU-PF earlier sacked him as its leader in a step precipitated by an army takeover four days earlier.
But in the speech from his official residence, Mugabe acknowledged criticisms from ZANU-PF, the military and the public, but made no mention of his own position, instead pledging to preside over the ZANU-PF congress scheduled for next month.
ZANU-PF had given the 93-year-old, who led his country to indepndence in 1980, less than 24 hours to quit as head of state or face impeachment, an attempt to secure a peaceful end to his tenure after a de facto military coup.
ZANU-PF's central committee had earlier named Emmerson Mnangagwa as its new leader. It was Mugabe's sacking of Mnangagwa as his vice-president, to pave the way for his wife Grace to succeed him, that triggered the army's intervention.
On Saturday, hundreds of thousands took to the streets of the capital Harare to celebrate Mugabe's downfall and hail a new era for their country.
With the generals responsible seated next to him, Mugabe gave a lengthy speech acknowledging some problems with the economy and the Zanu-PF party from which he was ousted earlier in the day but made no mention of leaving office.
The military takeover"did not amount to a threat to our well-cherished constitutional order, nor was it a challenge to my authority as head of state and government, not even as commander in chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces," he said.
He added that the military had been polite and respectful since Wednesday's events.
"The congress is due in a few weeks from now. I will preside over its processes which must not be prepossesed by any acts calculated to undermine it or to compromise the outcomes in the eyes of the public," Mugabe said of the party meet scheduled for December.
The nonagenerian at times seemed confused during the speech, occasionally looking to the generals beside him and apearing to lose his place in his notes.
"Hints of interegenerational conflict must be controlled," Mugabe said, in apparent reference to the division between the party's old guard, who fought in the country's liberation war, and a younger faction lead by the first lady Grace Mugabe.
