The fall from power of Zimbabwe's 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe would be well worth celebrating -- were it not for the manner of his exit and the danger it presents for his woefully mismanaged country.
Over the course of nearly four decades, Mugabe has brought what should have been one of Africa's most prosperous economies to a state of outright collapse. Wishing to create a dynasty, he then tried to engineer the succession of his wife -- ousting her most plausible rival, the former head of the nation's security service. |
| The Good and Bad News About Mugabe's Exit |
The armed forces stepped in, dethroning one dictator and perhaps making way for the next.
Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose removal precipitated this struggle, is no paragon of liberal democracy. He leads a rival faction of Zanu-PF, the ruling party, which has a long and brutal history of corruption and repression. Sadly, Zimbabwe's defense forces are champions of their own economic interests, not the nation's constitution or its long-suffering citizens.
