Forex Dataset

It is important to assess whether the situation in Zimbabwe can be considered constitutional and in compliance with the AU framework. Article 92 of the Zimbabwe Constitution stipulates that “the President and the Vice-Presidents are directly elected jointly by registered voters throughout Zimbabwe”. More importantly, when the President resigns, the Vice-President has the right to replace him until elections are held according to article 101 of the Constitution. Yet, in Zimbabwe it was not the incumbent Vice-President but a former Vice-President who replaced Mugabe after his resignation. The military acted very diligently to deter any potential sanction from the AU by not overthrowing Mugabe by force and in an abrupt manner. In fact, they stated that it was not a coup and that they were protecting Mugabe from criminals surrounding him, seemingly acting in the President’s own interests. and waited for him to do so. It is undeniable that there is a close link between the military’s intervention and Mugabe’s resignation, despite the military’s refusal to call this incidence a coup. Even if we accept that the military did not force the President to step down by using armed force, and that the resignation of Mugabe reflects his own will, the current governmental change is still not in accordance with the Zimbabwe Constitution. Although the military put truemoney database considerable effort into easing the reaction of the international community, the governmental change was not conducted in accordance with constitutional rules and thus was is in violation of article 30 of the AU’s Constitutive Act, which prohibits unconstitutional changes of government. However, the AU abstained from making any statement about the compliance of the manner in which the new president rose to power with the AU framework. This indicates that the organisation changed its consistent practice of rejecting governments established by military intervention.

The AU’s practice regarding the change of government in Zimbabwe comes at a time when the AU is working towards consolidating its mechanism against unconstitutional changes of government. The Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance creates individual criminal responsibility for coup perpetrators in its article 25. When the Malabo Protocol enters into force and the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights is established, the Court will have competence to try coup perpetrators. It is therefore still open to debate why the AU changed its long-established practice and tolerated, or even welcomed, the military intervention in Zimbabwe.