Zimbabwe has officially declared 21 February to be Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day, thereby making the former president’s birthday a public holiday, the Herald newspaper reports.<\/p>\n
New President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to form a cabinet this week.<\/p>\n
Mr Mugabe resigned last week after a military intervention and days of mass protests.<\/p>\n
The police and army are to stage joint patrols as the country returns to normal, the authorities have said.<\/p>\n
They have already received reports of looting and illegal occupation of properties, particularly farms and houses.<\/p>\n
Police had not been seen in public until 21 November when Mr Mugabe resigned and they slowly started returning to work. The army had effectively been in charge.<\/p>\n
Before the army operation, police officers had been an ever-present sight in the centre of the capital, Harare, and roads around the country, although they were not always welcome as many complained of police harassment.<\/p>\n
Calls for the former president’s birthday to be made a national holiday were adopted by the government in August, following intense lobbying by the Zanu-PF Youth League,\u00a0the Herald reports.<\/p>\n
The decision was officially recorded on Friday, it adds.<\/p>\n
Last week, President Mnangagwa said the former president needed to be given the respect and recognition he deserved as one of the founders and leaders of Zimbabwe.<\/p>\n
“To me personally, he remains a father, mentor, comrade-in-arms and my leader,” he said during his acceptance speech at his inauguration on Friday.<\/p>\n
Reports that Mr Mugabe was granted $10m (\u00a37.5m)\u00a0to ease him out of office have not been confirmed.<\/p>\n
Break from the past?<\/strong><\/p>\n There is speculation as to whether Mr Mnangagwa will select a broad-based government or keep figures from the Mugabe era.<\/p>\n The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has called for an inclusive “transitional authority” to mark a break with his 37-year rule and bring in reforms to pave the way for free elections next year.<\/p>\n There are fears that President Mnangagwa, who is associated with some of worst atrocities committed under the ruling Zanu-PF party since independence in 1980, will not usher in the democratic reforms that many in Zimbabwe are hoping for.<\/p>\n –<\/p>\n Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zimbabwe has officially declared 21 February to be Robert Gabriel Mugabe National Youth Day, thereby making the former president’s birthday a public holiday, the Herald newspaper reports. New President Emmerson Mnangagwa is expected to form a cabinet this week. Mr Mugabe resigned last week after a military intervention and days of mass protests. The police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":378062,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[107],"tags":[10377,563],"class_list":["post-378060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international","tag-mugabe-holiday","tag-zimbabwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=378060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/378062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=378060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=378060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=378060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}