Flash! Zimbabwe: My People Need Me, Not Time To Say Goodbye – 89-Year-Old Robert Mugabe

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe signs Zimbabwe’s new constitution into law in the capital Harare, replacing a 33-year-old document forged in the dying days of British colonial rule and paving the way for elections later this year, May 22, 2013. (Reuters)

Just after Zimbabwe’s top court told President Robert Mugabe to hold elections before the end of July, he appeared in a documentary combining domestic campaign mode with a diplomatic charm offensive.

In the fly-on-the-wall show on South African television the 89-year-old opened up on the armed struggle for independence from Britain and making love to his 47-year-old wife.

He also revealed he wanted to add to his 33 years at the helm of the poor, land-locked southern African nation.

The footage provided a rare glimpse of Mugabe’s human side, surrounded by his family, and turned heads in Zimbabwe’s powerful neighbor, which is likely to be a major funder of an election and also a judge of its quality.

But Africa’s oldest head of state skirted around the reforms to the army, police and media that he is under pressure to carry out to ensure a peaceful and credible vote.

With the court giving him less than 60 days to call the election, there would be little time – even if he wanted to – to make any meaningful changes to state institutions that remain firmly in his camp.

“My people still need me and when people need you to lead them, it is not time, sir — it doesn’t matter how old you are — to say goodbye,” he told South African interviewer Dali Tambo in the documentary, aired on Sunday but shot several weeks earlier.

Five years after the disputed and violent elections that spawned a fractious coalition with his main adversary, Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s neighbors are desperate to avoid a rerun of a poll that sparked an exodus of opposition supporters.

The regional 15-member Southern African Development Community (SADC) has called a summit this weekend to help Harare raise the estimated $132 million needed for the election, and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says it will use the opportunity to tackle Mugabe on the issue of reforms.

But with the economy bouncing back since 2008 from hyperinflation and a 40 percent economic contraction over the previous eight years, there is every chance that, even in a fair fight, Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party might win.

Although there are no formal opinion polls, surveys in the last year by Freedom House, a U.S. political think tank, and African research group Afro-Barometer have given Mugabe a narrow lead over Tsvangirai, who has suffered hits to his personal and professional reputation since entering government.

“Mugabe’s position is informed by his belief that he will win the elections and that ZANU-PF has recovered enough after 2008 to survive Morgan Tsvangirai,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at Harare’s University of Zimbabwe.

“It is a gamble but we are in an environment in which you cannot rule out ZANU-PF.”

The MDC disputes the findings of unfavorable voter surveys, saying Zimbabweans are still too afraid to express themselves freely after the 2008 bloodshed, and remains confident of victory.

Courtesy Reuters

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Flash: Zimbabwe Says Has No Money For Elections; Appeals For $132 Million Foreign Aid

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe is appealing for foreign help to fund presidential and parliamentary elections planned for later this year, Finance Minister Tendai Biti said on Monday.

“It’s self-evident that treasury does not have the capacity to fund elections,” Mr Biti told parliament.

He said the country needed $132 million for the elections, which veteran President Robert Mugabe’s party wants held as early as June.

However Mr Biti said the government would not borrow this money from local firms as it did for a March referendum on a new constitution, which paved the way for the polls to be held.

“This ministry of finance has no intention to emasculate the economy for this event, which will happen on one day. As far as we are concerned the international community must come to assist.”

Mr Biti said that, on top of an appeal for funding through the UN, the government recently wrote to South Africa and Angola to ask for loans for the elections.

South Africa’s cabinet has approved a $100 million loan for budgetary support following discussions in September last year, the minister said.

He admitted that “all is not well” with Zimbabwe’s economy, which is battling to recover from a decade-long downturn marked by galloping inflation which at one point peaked at 231 million per cent.

This has since stabilised with year-on-year inflation going down to 2.8 per cent in March, according to the national statistics agency.

While the economy is growing — at five per cent last year — public finances remain in disarray.

In March the government collected a total of $241 million in revenue against a target of $301 million. Exports since January stood at $689 million while imports for the same period totalled $1.7 billion.

“We are already under pressure. We are being suffocated even before we include the elections of 2013,” Minister Biti said.

He said the government received no revenue from diamond mines in January and February and only $5 million in March against a target of $15 million.

“If there was honesty from diamond revenue we would not be asking for money from anyone for the elections,” the minister said.

Long-time rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s camp has accused Mugabe’s ZANU-PF of pocketing diamond revenues.

“We essentially raped the economy for the referendum,” Mr Biti said adding that the funds borrowed for the elections could have been lent to companies to increase production.

Some companies that had closed at the height of the economic woes reopened following the formation of the power-sharing government, but production has remained low.

Zimbabwe is expected to hold elections at the expiry of a power-sharing government formed four years ago by President Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai.

There is no agreement yet on the date of the elections. Mr Mugabe wants them before June 29, while Mr Tsvangirai wants the elections later in the year to allow for reforms to ensure a fair vote.

Courtesy AFP

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Flash! Zimbabwe: PM’s Aide Arrested For ‘Spending’ $1,500 State Funds On Fake Trip

A close aide of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been arrested for allegedly defrauding the Government of US$1,500 after he claimed travelling and subsistence allowances for a South African trip he did not undertake. 

Edgar Gobvu (27) of Budiriro 2 in Harare was arrested recently before being released to enable police to finalise their investigations.

He was arrested after it was discovered that he gave his passport to his colleague Edward Gudhe, who is believed to have facilitated for it to be stamped at both exit and entry points.

Both Gobvu and Gudhe are Mr Tsvangirai’s personal aides who are very close to him and whom he has been taking along on various foreign trips.

Deputy national police spokesperson Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said yesterday that Gobvu would be brought to court once investigations were complete.

“We are investigating the allegations that he fraudulently claimed travelling and subsistence allowances purporting that he was part of PM Tsvangirai’s entourage to South Africa on March 22, but in actual fact he did not undertake the journey for which he claimed US$1 500,” he said.

“When the PM’s delegation left Harare International Airport, the suspect was not part of the delegation. He remained behind and surprisingly he did not withdraw his passport from Edward Gudhe who allegedly facilitated to have Gobvu’s passport stamped by immigration officials upon departure at Harare International Airport and upon arrival and departure at OR Tambo International Airport.”

Chief Supt Mandipaka said when police received the information, they checked with the outgoing passenger manifest and discovered that Gobvu’s name was appearing on the list.

Police further checked the incoming passenger manifest flight number SA024 and discovered that Gobvu’s name was not appearing on the list as did the rest of those on Mr Tsvangirai’s entourage.

Courtesy The Herald

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Flash! A 22-Carat Dictator: Robert Mugabe Has Gold Coins Minted For His 89th Birthday In Poor Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is one of the poorest country’s on Earth, but clearly despot Robert Mugabe doesn’t seem to care on his 89th birthday.

The president celebrated it by immortalising himself in freshly minted gold coins and held a lavish party with a giant cake.

Guests, including his wife, first lady Grace, tucked into the four-tier treat made in his honour at the state house before he gave a thank-you speech. 

The celebration came amid accusations that Mugabe is losing his grip on a country he has ruled since coming to power in 1980 and resorting to violence.

His party are suspected of being involved in the death of the 12-year-old son of a local official who is supporter of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Christpowers Maisiri was burned to death while sleeping in a hut with his brothers last weekend in Headlands district, 110 miles east of Harare.

Tsvangirai and Mugabe were forced into a power-sharing government in 2009 and will resume their rivalry in elections expected around July.

The MDC quickly blamed Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party, saying the alleged killers were after the boy’s father, Shepherd.

ZANU-PF denied killing the boy and accused the MDC of trying to fan pre-election tensions in the southern African state.

“ZANU-PF is under siege, ‘Tsvangirai said while addressing mourners and supporters attending the burial in Headlands, a tobacco-growing district.

‘They are in a corner and this is a desperate act from a party that is losing power.’

Fighting back tears, Shepherd Maisiri said he had been subjected to violence and intimidation from ZANU-PF supporters since 2000. His son had been born in the bush because his parents had to flee from opponents, he said.

Tsvangirai said he had shown Mugabe pictures of the charred remains of the boy during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday and that the president had ‘shrunk’ in disbelief and ordered a full investigation.

Tsvangirai, former trade union leader was forced to quit a presidential run-off race in 2008 after 200 of his supporters died in political violence blamed on ZANU-PF members.

‘We are hurt but not intimidated. This has to end, starting with the arrest of the people who committed this heinous crime,’ said Tsvangirai.

He said he could not vouch for Mugabe’s sincerity when calling for peaceful elections.

Courtesy Daily Mail

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Flash: Mugabe At 89 Sees ‘Divine’ Mission To Still Rule Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe said he had a “divine task” to lead Zimbabwe, shrugging off concerns about his health and fitness for office as he prepares for what could be one the closest election battles since he came to power in 1980.

Few Zimbabweans are ruling out victory for the 89-year-old Mugabe even though his country, once an African success story, is in a decade-long economic slump worsened by Western sanctions and more than four fifths of the population is unemployed.

Since Mugabe was forced to share power with his chief political rival after a disputed election in 2008, the economy has shown tentative signs of recovery.

Rampant inflation has calmed, the mining sector is buoyant and agriculture is picking up after turmoil caused by the seizure of farms from their white owners under Mugabe’s policy of black empowerment.

Mugabe, Africa’s oldest president, maintains that Zimbabwe’s difficulties stem from a Western plot to re-colonize it, a view that strikes a chord with his supporters, who see the sanctions as punishment for a justified campaign to wrest their country’s wealth from the hands of foreign corporations and the white minority.

To his critics, Mugabe’s land seizures and a drive to force foreign-owned firms to sell majority shareholding to locals has delayed economic recovery by discouraging foreign investment.

They say Mugabe, long admired as a liberation hero and pragmatic leader, has turned Zimbabwe into a basket case and squandered national goodwill by clinging onto power through ballot box rigging and intimidation.

The champion of African popular rule has looked increasingly to God to bolster his claim to leadership.

Addressing his staff at a party they hosted for him on the eve of his 89th birthday, Mugabe was serenaded by one of the country’s leading gospel singers and spoke of the solitude he has felt since many of his relatives and independence-era comrades died.

“Why is it that all my friends are gone and my relatives are gone and I continue to linger on? Then I say to myself, well, it’s not my choice, its God’s choice,” Mugabe said at the party late on Wednesday, which was attended by state media.

“This is a task the Lord might have wanted me to fulfill among my people,” he said. “I read it as a bidding of God… The bidding says you move forward ever.”

Tight race?
 
Mugabe says he wants to continue the liberation struggle and  consolidate black economic empowerment.

More than 4,000 out of an original 4,500 white-owned farms have been seized since 2000 under a program he says is aimed at correcting land ownership imbalances created by colonialism.

Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party has endorsed his candidacy for the presidential elections, which he and his arch-rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai have agreed to hold around July.

“I hear a lot of people talking about a tight race, but with his record I just don’t see how Mugabe can win a free and fair election,” said 28-year-old Charles Simukai, who was selling fruit on the streets of the capital Harare.

He said Mugabe should have retired from politics to play an advisory role as a senior statesman.

Tsvangirai says ZANU-PF rigged and robbed him of victory in three major violence-marred polls since 2000.

Many Zimbabweans say the fragile power-sharing government that has held together since 2008 has helped to make ZANU-PF less autocratic.

However, Mugabe’s opponents say they expect ZANU-PF’s campaign to repeat underhand tactics used to secure past election wins, deploying war veterans and youth militia to intimidate voters.

Supporters of Tsvangirai say he enjoys the support of an army of new young voters who might be less intimidated by such methods.

“The general consensus is that you need a free and fair election for a real democratic outcome… but there is no consensus that Zimbabwe will get that,” said Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe.

Questions over health

Mugabe has spent the last two days reorganizing the country’s electoral commission and discussing funding for his campaign.

Some officials in ZANU-PF’s politburo worry privately that he is taking risks with his health and want him to hand over the reins to a younger figure.

But nobody has openly challenged Mugabe – the result, to some, of a generous patronage system that rewards loyalty and his long-honed skills in outwitting potential rivals.

Mugabe appears fit and alert in public, but he is widely believed to suffer from ill health that could make it hard to cope with the pressures of the campaign trail.

A June 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks said Mugabe had prostate cancer that had spread to other organs. According to the cable, he was apparently urged by his physician to step down in 2008.

But ZANU-PF appears to have accepted that Mugabe has maneuvered himself into a position where he ends up president for life, a position that opponents say he wants as security against possible prosecution for rights abuses.

“What we have … is a president celebrating his 89th birthday while planning on how he can continue in power after so many years in office. That is not normal,” said professor Masunungure.

Courtesy VOA

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Flash: Zimbabwe Deputy President, John Nkomo Dies After Cancer Battle

Zimbabwean Vice-President John Nkomo died on Thursday after treatment for cancer in South Africa, President Robert Mugabe said, removing a potential successor to the ageing leader who has his own health problems.

Nkomo, 78, was nominated for the joint number two position alongside Joice Mujuru two years ago after a fractious meeting of the southern African nation’s ruling ZANU-PF party.

“We’ve lost our vice president John Landa Nkomo. He was suffering for a long time with cancer. All of a sudden now we heard his situation had become worse … deteriorated from yesterday,” a somber Mugabe told reporters at his official residence.

A founding member of nationalist leader Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU before its merger with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF in the 1980s, Nkomo was seen by many as an efficient administrator but an unlikely potential successor to Mugabe due to his age and ill health.

Analysts say his death will rekindle debate over 88-year-old Mugabe’s health issues and open up a succession battle as the country’s shaky coalition government edges towards a general election due this year.

Mugabe vowed in December to fight like a “wounded beast” to retain power amid grumbling within his party that he should hand over the reins to a younger leader.

He is Africa’s oldest head of state and has ruled the former British colony since independence in 1980.

There has been widespread speculation about his health but Mugabe and the government have denied reports he has been receiving treatment for prostate cancer in Singapore over the last two years.

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Flash! Another World’s First? Mugabe Wants Africa To Have One President

Zimbabwe’s president, Robert Mugabe, on Jan.15 called upon his peers to focus on the appointment of one president to lead Africa when the forthcoming African Union (AU) summit meets soon.

Mugabe said the summit should discuss the appointment of a ‘President of Africa’ to foster unity among Africans and ensure that member states adhere to the founding principles of the original Organization of African Unity (OAU).

“Yes, we need a President for Africa,” Mugabe said. “That is what we are going to discuss at the AU summit. Africa is not a united continent. We are not at the stage our founding fathers wanted us to be when the organ was formed,” he is reported as saying by the Zimbabwe publication News Day.

Addressing journalists at State House in Harare alongside his guest, Thomas Boni Yayi, the president of Benin, who is also the outgoing AU chairman, Mugabe said the AU had failed to integrate Africans, with some only seeing themselves in the context of Anglophones and others Francophones.

The proposal to set up a ‘United States of Africa’ was first mooted by the late Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in 1999 as a way of ending the continent’s conflicts, but it failed to gain enough support from his African counterparts, including Uganda’s president Museveni– with some doubting Gaddafi’s real motive.

But Mugabe emphasized Africa should have one president who would help fight divisions and move Africa to a continental power from the regional shell he claimed it is today.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe for over 30 years and is only 36 days shy of his 90th birthday said he was pleased that even though Zimbabweans had political differences, they had realised they were guided by the same destiny and hoped the forthcoming elections scheduled for March would be peaceful. Mugabe is expected to stand again for another term in office.

Courtesy The Independent

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Flash: Mugabe fighting for his life in Singapore hospital

Cape Town – Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe is said to be fighting for his life in a Singapore hospital, The Australian reports.

This comes amid reports that he had agreed to hand over power to his defence minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, visited Singapore eight times last year.

The New Zimbabwe, however, denied the claims of his ill health, saying he would be back in the country on Wednesday.

His spokesperson described the trips as necessitated by cataract surgery, or simply private visits, amid repeated media reports that he was suffering from cancer.

The Zimbabwe Mail, quoting a senior official of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party, said the president was undergoing intensive treatment in Singapore and that some members of his family had joined him after boarding a chartered private jet on Saturday.

The alarm was raised when the government postponed a cabinet meeting.

Mugabe, 88, is ostensibly in Singapore to oversee enrolment in a postgraduate course at Singapore University for his daughter Bona. University registration starts in September.

A June 2008 US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks last month said Mugabe has prostate cancer that has spread to other organs. He was urged by his physician to step down in 2008, but has stayed in the job.

Courtesy News24

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