ZIMBABWE’S former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa flew home today to take power after Robert Mugabe’s resignation brought a sudden end to 37 years of authoritarian rule.

He will be sworn in as president at an inauguration ceremony on Friday, parliamentary speaker Jacob Mudenda said. 

Mugabe’s iron grip ended yesterday in a shock announcement to parliament where MPs had convened to impeach the 93-year-old who dominated every aspect of Zimbabwean public life for decades.

On the streets, the news that his long and often brutal leadership was over sparked wild celebrations which lasted late into the night, with crowds dancing and cheering ecstatically amid a cacophony of car horns.

Mnangagwa, 75, was sacked by the president on November 6 in a move that pushed infuriated army chiefs to intervene, triggering a series of events which led to Mugabe’s ouster. 

A former key Mugabe ally, Mnangagwa fled the country after his dismissal, saying he would not return without guarantees of his safety. 

His sacking was the result of an increasingly bitter succession battle with first lady Grace Mugabe, who had been pushing to take over from her ageing husband.  

“My decision to resign is voluntary,” Mugabe wrote in his resignation letter, expressing his “desire to ensure a smooth, peaceful and non-violent transfer of power”.

In a highly symbolic scene shortly after his resignation, a man took down a portrait of Mugabe from a wall inside the building where MPs had assembled for the extraordinary session to impeach the defiant president.

Another person replaced it with an image of the ousted vice-president. 

Mnangagwa is a political veteran long-time party loyalist who has served in a host of different cabinet positions since independence in 1980 and who has close ties with the military.

But critics describe him as a ruthless hardliner behind years of state-sponsored violence, warning he could prove just as authoritarian as his mentor. 

And Rinaldo Depagne of the International Crisis Group said Mugabe’s departure “does not necessarily mean more democracy”.

Ahead of his arrival, senior military commanders, official cars and a crowd of journalists gathered at Harare’s Manyame airbase where Mnangagwa was expected to land. – AFP, November 22, 2017.