HARARE (Dispatches) -- Zimbabwe's former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa will be sworn in as president Friday following the resignation of Robert Mugabe after nearly four decades in power, state broadcaster ZBC reported on Wednesday.
Mnangagwa, who fled for his safety after Mugabe sacked him two weeks ago, was to land at Manyame Airbase in Harare at 6pm (1600 GMT), ZBC said. Mnangagwa's sacking prompted the military takeover that forced Mugabe out.
Mugabe's downfall came suddenly for a man once feted across Africa as a liberation hero for leading his country to independence from Britain in 1980 after a war.
The 93-year-old had clung on for a week after the army takeover, with ZANU-PF urging him to go. He finally resigned on Tuesday moments after parliament began an impeachment process seen as the only legal way to force him out.
"The transition from Mugabe to Mnangagwa could mark a major and positive shift and put Zimbabwe back on the foreign investor radar," head of equity research at emerging market bank Exotix Capital, Hasnain Malik, said in a note.
"Many of the ingredients of a great frontier market are in place in Zimbabwe: human capital, infrastructure, natural resources and diaspora."
However, there are doubts about Mnangagwa's reform credentials, while a large section of the Zimbabwean public are hostile towards a man who stands accused of repression.
"The dark past is not going to disappear. They will be following him around like a piece of chewing gum on his shoe," International Crisis Group's southern Africa senior consultant Piers Pigou said.
"For him to really be seen to be doing the right thing, he's going to have to introduce policies that fundamentally undermine the power structures of ZANU-PF, through a shift to genuine political pluralism and a decoupling of the party and state."
Nicknamed "Ngwena", or crocodile in the Shona language, an animal famed in Zimbabwean lore for its stealth and ruthlessness, Mnangagwa issued a statement from hiding on Tuesday calling on Zimbabweans to unite to rebuild the country.