{"id":24621,"date":"2016-04-15T02:18:06","date_gmt":"2016-04-15T02:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zimbabwe-protest-thousands-call-for-end-to-mugabe\/"},"modified":"2016-04-15T02:17:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-15T02:17:36","slug":"zimbabwe-protest-thousands-call-for-end-to-mugabe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zimbabwe-protest-thousands-call-for-end-to-mugabe\/","title":{"rendered":"Zimbabwe protest: Thousands call for end to Mugabe rule"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{In the first anti-government rally in years, thousands hit streets of Harare to protest against economic mismanagement.}<\/p>\n<p>Thousands of opposition supporters marched through the streets of Zimbabwe&#8217;s capital Harare on Thursday calling for an end to the rule of longtime President Robert Mugabe.<\/p>\n<p>In the first anti-government protest in nearly a decade, supporters of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) carried anti-Mugabe placards and sang party songs before party leader Morgan Tsvangirai gave a speech against the presidency.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mugabe has no solution to the crisis,&#8221; Tsvangirai told supporters gathered in Africa Unity Square wearing T-shirts in the party&#8217;s red colours.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are here to tell Mugabe and his regime that you have failed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Anti-government protests in Zimbabwe have often been brutally broken up by police during the rule of Mugabe, who has been in power since independence in 1980.<\/p>\n<p>Al Jazeera\u2019s Haru Mutasa, reporting from Harare, said police had initially threatened to ban Thursday&#8217;s protest but were eventually ordered by the High Court to allow it to go ahead.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s been several years since the opposition has marched in the streets of Harare like this; people are surprised and the numbers are huge,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They are in their thousands, marching to the parliament saying they want President Robert Mugabe &#8211; who is 92 years old &#8211; to step down. They say he is too old and that he is mismanaging the country. They also say they want corruption dealt with, they want jobs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Zimbabwe&#8217;s economic crisis has worsened in recent months, taking a toll on employment rates and government expenditure.<\/p>\n<p>Mugabe remains active but his increasingly fragile health has sparked intense speculation over his successor, and the fate of the country when his rule comes to an end. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11699 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/3fa7af065ac0400a8617b544c33997e6_18.jpg\" alt=\"Opposition supporters demonstrated against poverty and corruption\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{In the first anti-government rally in years, thousands hit streets of Harare to protest against economic mismanagement.} Thousands of opposition supporters marched through the streets of Zimbabwe&#8217;s capital Harare on Thursday calling for an end to the rule of longtime President Robert Mugabe. In the first anti-government protest in nearly a decade, supporters of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[2474],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-al-jazeera"],"bylines":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2474,"name":"AL JAZEERA","slug":"al-jazeera","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24621"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24621"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}