HARARE: Zimbabwe’s former president Robert Mugabe, who was ousted in November, said Sunday that he would not vote for his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa in the presidential election.
“For the first time ever we have now a long list of aspirants to power,” Mugabe said at his Blue Roof private residence in Harare.
“I cannot vote for those who tormented me... I will make my choice among the other 22 (candidates) but it is a long list.”
Media were allowed through the gates of the luxury sprawling mansion where chairs were set up on a formal lawn in front of a blue-tiled pagoda to listen.
Zimbabwe goes to the polls Monday in its first election since Mugabe was forced to resign last November after 37 years in power, with allegations mounting of voter fraud and predictions of a disputed result.
President Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s former ally in the ruling ZANU-PF party, faces opposition leader Nelson Chamisa of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) in a landmark vote for the southern African nation.
Zimbabwe’s generals shocked the world last year when they seized control and ushered Mnangagwa to power after Mugabe, 94, tried to position his wife Grace, 53, to be his successor.
In his only previous press interviews since his fall, Mugabe admitted in March that “some errors were done” under his authoritarian rule, and said he thought his country was now “topsy turvy.”
“I never thought (Mnangagwa) would be the man who turned against me,” he added.
Zimbabwe’s Mugabe says he will not vote for successor Mnangagwa
Zimbabwe’s Mugabe says he will not vote for successor Mnangagwa
- Robert Mugabe said his successor Emmerson Mnangagwa had turned against him
- Mugabe said he could not vote for someone who had 'tormented' him
US border agent shoots and wounds two people in Portland
- The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement
A US immigration agent shot and wounded a man and a woman in Portland, Oregon, authorities said on Thursday, leading local officials to call for calm given public outrage over the ICE shooting death of a Minnesota woman a day earlier.
“We understand the heightened emotion and tension many are feeling in the wake of the shooting in Minneapolis, but I am asking the community to remain calm as we work to learn more,” Portland police chief Bob Day said in a statement.
The Portland shooting unfolded Thursday afternoon as US Border Patrol agents were conducting a targeted vehicle stop, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The statement said the driver, a suspected Venezuelan gang member, attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over the agents. In response, DHS said, “an agent fired a defensive shot” and the driver and a passenger drove away.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the circumstances of the incident.
Portland police said that the shooting took place near a medical clinic in eastern Portland. Six minutes after arriving at the scene and determining federal agents were involved in the shooting, police were informed that two people with gunshot wounds — a man and a woman — were asking for help at a location about 2 miles (3 km) to the northeast of the medical clinic.
Police said they applied tourniquets to the man and woman, who were taken to a hospital. Their condition was unknown.
The shooting came just a day after a federal agent from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a separate agency within the Department of Homeland Security, fatally shot a 37-year-old mother of three in her car in Minneapolis.
That shooting has prompted two days of protests in Minneapolis. Officers from both ICE and Border Patrol have been deployed in cities across the United States as part of Republican President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
While the aggressive enforcement operations have been cheered by the president’s supporters, Democrats and civil rights activists have decried the posture as an unnecessary provocation.
US officials contend criminal suspects and anti-Trump activists have increasingly used their cars as weapons, though video evidence has sometimes contradicted their claims.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said in a statement his city was now grappling with violence at the hands of federal agents and that “we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode and bloodshed mounts.”
He called on ICE to halt all its operations in the city until an investigation can be completed.
“Federal militarization undermines effective, community-based public safety, and it runs counter to the values that define our region,” Wilson said. “I will use every legal and legislative tool available to protect our residents’ civil and human rights.”
