Theleak-SA

Harare - Car horns blared and cheering crowds waving the national flag thronged the streets of Zimbabwe's capital Harare on Tuesday after news broke that President Robert Mugabe had resigned after 37 years in power.

The announcement came after days of mounting pressure on the 93-year-old leader, whose long and authoritarian rule made him feared by many of his citizens.

"We are just so happy that things are finally going to change," Togo Ndhlalambi, 32, a hairdresser, told AFP.

"We woke up every morning waiting for this day. This country has been through tough times."

After a week of political turmoil, Zimbabweans reacted with shock, disbelief and delight.

"I am so happy that Mugabe is gone, 37 years under a dictatorship is not a joke," said Tinashe Chakanetsa, 18.

"I am hoping for a new Zimbabwe ruled by the people and not by one person.

"We need leaders who are selected by the people and not rulers. I am looking forward to get a job after our economy recovers."

Massive crowds gathered within minutes of the surprise announcement made to a meeting of parliamentary lawmakers who were discussing a motion to impeach Mugabe.

At the Rainbow Towers conference centre where the MPs were gathered, a framed portrait of the president was ripped from the wall, torn apart and stamped to pieces by a cheering crowd..

"It's shocking, that guy (was) powerful, very powerful," said Barber Wright Chirombe, one of those who joined the euphoric street celebrations.

Across the city, men danced, women sang and many were in tears, brandishing national flags and often praising General Constantino Chiwenga -- the man who led the army takeover that finally triggered the crisis that overthrew the ageing president.

"We were reduced to worthless people under Mugabe," said Yeukai Magwari, 33, a vendor dancing with uniformed domestic maids in the Avondale neighbourhood of the capital.

"From now on we don't want to see our elderly men and women sleeping in queues outside banks, and people reduced to being destitute after going to college," he said.

Tendai Chaitezvi, 29, a bank employee, celebrated with friends at the Fiesta bar in the Avenues district as music was blasted from several car stereos.

"The situation in the country under this man was rough," he said. "A lot of our friends went abroad in search of jobs and were wondering how we managed to survive back here.

"There is suddenly a sense of optimism now. Today is the start of hoping that things will get back to normal."

Leah Macharaga, 37, was born in 1980, the same year that Mugabe came to power. "I hated that man," she said simply.

The news came shortly before dusk in Harare, and as dark fell cars careened through the unlit streets.

"I am happy beyond words. Now we expect a better future for our country than the hardship we endured under Mugabe," Modesta Macharaga, 35, told AFP. 

Some locals immediately focused on the country's uncertain future, and likely next president Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe ally with a reputation as a ZANU-PF party hardliner responsible for violent crackdowns on dissent.

"Mugabe's resignation must be followed by the resignation of all those have surrounded him," Munyaradzi Chihota, 40, a businessman in Harare, told AFP.

"We need a complete overhaul, not just the removal of one person at the top. With any elements of ZANU PF still in power I doubt that we will move forward."

"We hate ZANU-PF and we don't want to replace a dictator with another dictator," said Oscar Muponda, a office worker in the capital.

In Zimbabwe's second city of Bulawayo, Mandla Mpofu, 63, a lawyer gathered with friends at the Continental Bar.

"It has been years and years of suffering and here is freedom at last. I am going to celebrate late tonight."

The EFF has fired six of its councillors in the Mogale City council for voting with the ANC.

The EFF’s Central Command Team took this decision after they met on Saturday after the completion of a disciplinary process.

"On 11 July 2017, six EFF councillors contravened the EFF decision not to attend the Mogale City Budget-vote council meeting in which the ANC needed its budget to be passed. These councillors not only helped for a council meeting quorum to be constituted, they also voted in favour of the proposed ANC budget," said EFF spokesperson Mbuyiseni Ndlozi in a statement.

"The organisation took exception to this conduct as it returned the public purse in the hands of the ANC. This is the same ANC that the people of Mogale City removed from the government following the 2016 local government elections outcomes. It is the same ANC that has been looting the public purse since 1994 to the exclusion and marginalisation of our people."

According to Ndlozi, the mandate not to vote with the ANC is consistent with the "non-negotiable cardinal pillar number seven" – their policy position to fight corruption.  

"Thus these six councillors, namely Ms Nhlanhla Shilubane, Ms Nomonde Nkatu, Ms Lemogang Modisane, Mr Eric Baloyi, Mr Edward Motsitsi and Mr Simanga Mkhumbeni, essentially betrayed our revolutionary tenet. Accordingly they have been expelled," said Ndlozi.

He said the EFF Central Command Team confirmed the sentence the party’s National Disciplinary Committee, as required by the EFF’s code of conduct. 

"The six EFF councillors have the right to appeal, however, the expulsion sentence is in effect even when under appeal. The EFF will communicate with the Mogale City Municipal Manager so as to declare the six vacancies and so that the EFF can replace all the six councillors," said Ndlozi.

The EFF obtained nine seats in the Mogale municipal council, which has 77 seats, of which the ANC occupies 38. All nine EFF seats were obtained through the proportional party list, so the expulsion of the six councillors would not require by-elections.

CAPE TOWN - Triple murder accused Henri van Breda has told the court he wishes that he had done more to save his family from an axe-wielding killer.

Testifying in his trial this week, Van Breda was also made to demonstrate how an intruder attacked his relatives with an axe.

He says he also couldn’t bring himself to help his family.

“If I have been thinking clearly I probably would have done these things. If I hadn’t been so scared.”

Van Breda is on trial for the murder his parents and older brother and for seriously injuring his sister in an attack at their Stellenbosch home in 2015.

During cross examination on Wednesday, prosecutor Susan Galloway questioned why the intruder would enter the house unarmed.

“It would be strange had a person planned to enter your house and attack the family that they come armed inadequately or unarmed. So they were, in actual fact, ill-prepared for the attack.”

A few months ago, Van Breda's lawyer Advocate Matthys Combrink argued that the axe found on the crime scene might have been one of two used in the attacks.

Prosecutor Susan Galloway asked Van Breda what he thinks about the possibility of a second axe.

“I don’t know. But I only saw one of them. I only saw one of the attackers and he was holding the one axe.”

Van Breda said it’s likely that the other attacker, who he only heard in the house, could have had a second axe.

But Galloway pressed harder.

“Did you ever see another axe other than exhibit 111C (the axe)?”

Van Breda responded: “No”

Van Breda claims the attacker must have come to the house unarmed, and taken a knife from one of the kitchen drawers, and the axe from the pantry where it had been kept.