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- Source tells CNN ruling party to meet Sunday for Mugabe confidence vote<\/li>\n
- “We are finally getting rid of the old man,” Harare resident says<\/li>\n
- Thousands take to the streets to protest Mugabe<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\nThousands of Zimbabweans took to the streets of Harare on Saturday to demand the resignation of President Robert Mugabe, in what could spell the political end for the 93-year-old leader who has ruled the country for nearly four decades.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nWaving placards with slogans like “Mugabe Must Rest Now” and “No to Mugabe Dynasty,” the atmosphere on the streets of the south African nation’s capital was electric, just days after the army put Mugabe under house arrest and detained some of his key political allies.<\/div>\n<\/div>\nPeople waved Zimbabwean flags while others ran alongside army tanks and hugged soldiers to show their gratitude. CNN did not see any police at the protest, which was originally called by the country’s influential association of army veterans.<\/div>\n\n<\/div>\nPeople march through a street in Harare on Saturday.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\nA demonstrator carries a sign directed at first lady Grace Mugabe.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“The whole nation is celebrating today. We are finally getting rid of the old man,” said Tanashe, a Harare resident who declined to provide a second name.<\/div>\nMugabe’s power appears to have finally been brought to check not by the opposition, but by the military and members of his own party, concerned about his apparent plans to have his wife Grace, 52, succeed him.<\/div>\n\nAn army spokesman, speaking with demonstrators near the end of Saturday’s rally, even cast Robert Mugabe as a foe to his own country.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n“Yes, we are in uniform, but understand that all we are doing is simply dealing with the enemy of Zimbabwe,” Gen. S.B. Noyo told remnants of the crowd in Harare, as he stood near a tank. \u00a0But Mugabe was still refusing to step down, an official with direct knowledge of the ongoing negotiations between the President and the military told CNN.<\/div>\n