​Zimbabwe Update:Mugabe Talks Tough,  Says I Remain in Charge

As several meetings are held to broker peace in the ongoing change of guard in Zimbabwe, a military source who was privy to an earlier meeting said the nonagenarian leader was resistant to step down. 

“He’s refusing to step down. I think he’s trying to buy time,” the source close to the Army Chief hinted earlier today. 

ZANU-PF officials had earlier suggested Mr Mugabe could “nominally” remain in power until the party congress in December, when Mr Mnnagagwa,  the ousted Vice President would formally be installed as party and national leader, thereby driving a final nail in the coffin of Grace Mugabe’s ambition to succeed her husband and the planned entrenchment of a dynastic leadership in the poor Southern African nation formally known as Southern Rhodesia before its independence in 1980.

Photos in the Zimbabwe Herald showed Mugabe meeting with Army Chief General Constantino Chiwenga and the two South African envoys from the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) at State House, Harare. 

Alongside them was Father Fidelia Mukononi, a Roman Catholic Priest known to Mr Mugabe for years, who has been brought in to mediate. 

Mr Mugabe’s intrasingence may not be unconnected with the fact that he may not be willing to voluntarily step down before next year’s planned elections.