Mugabe met with Army officials on Sunday after being removed as leader of Zanu-PF. He and Army commander Constantino Chiwenga were expected to discuss Mugabe's exit
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has agreed to step down after 37 years in power.
The world's oldest leader is due to officially announce his departure on live television tonight.
The news was greeted with ecstatic celebrations all over the country, with cars honking horns and crowds spontaneously taking to the streets of the capital.Hordes of people danced, sang and shouted anti-Mugabe slogans in scenes that looked likely to overshadow yesterday's protests on the streets of Harare tonight.
It came after MailOnline exclusively revealed that the elderly dictator was in a state of psychological collapse, crying for his dead son and late first wife, refusing to speak or wash and staging a desperate hunger strike.
Emmerson 'Crocodile' Mnangagwa, the former Vice President who was appointed the new leader of the Zanu-PF this morning, now looks destined to become Zimbabwe's new president as early as tomorrow.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe was fired as leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party and replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwa, the vice president he fired earlier this month. Mnangagwa, the former state security chief, is in line to head an interim post-Mugabe unity government that will focus on rebuilding ties with the outside world and stabilising an economy in freefall.
The frail dictator, pictured centre speaking to Army officials, has been staging a hunger strike over his confinement in house arrest and is refusing to take regular baths or speak
Ahead of his announcement, Mugabe broke down in tears and asked for his dead wife and son before meeting army chiefs on Sunday after being ousted as leader of Zimbabwe's Zanu-PF party, one of his aides has told MailOnline.
The frail 93-year-old has until noon local time on Monday to resign as president or impeachment proceedings will start, Zanu-PF said.
Mugabe was replaced by Mnangagwa after all ten Zimbabwean provinces passed no-confidence motions against the dictator two days earlier.
Ahead of his meeting with army officials to discuss his exit, Mugabe was 'wailing profusely' and saying that he wished he could speak to his dead wife, Sally Mugabe, and his late son, Michael Nhamodzenyika, who died from cerebral malaria in 1966 at the age of three.
'He spends most of his time looking at an old photograph of Sally. It is terrible,' the aide said of Mugabe's first wife, who died of kidney failure in 1992.
In 1996, Mugabe went on to marry his current wife, 'Gucci' Grace, who was also expelled from her role as head of the Zanu-PF Women's League 'forever'.
The frail dictator has been staging a hunger strike over his confinement in house arrest and is refusing to take regular baths or speak, the aide added.
Comments