When U.N. chief
Ban Ki-moon urged African leaders not to cling to power at a summit last
month, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe responded by saying he would
continue "until God says 'come'". Mugabe
turns 92 on Sunday and, judging by those comments, has no intention of
stepping down - despite being Africa's oldest leader and the only
president Zimbabwe has known since independence in 1980.
Mugabe remains in charge of day-to-day running
of his government. He still presides over graduations at all state
universities and military passing-out parades, and takes trips abroad.
The
president maintains that his party will choose a successor. But he
plans to contest the next election in 2018 aged 94, seeking his last
five-year term under a new constitution that would see him through to
99.
His wife Grace, a powerful figure in ZANU-PF
in her own right, told party supporters last week that he was the only
one who could keep Zimbabwe "intact and peaceful", adding she would push
him in a wheelbarrow to work if he was unable to walk.
"From
analysing the political situation, his political speeches, his
political actions, it is increasingly becoming clear that he is gunning
to be there for as long as he lives," said Eldred Masunungure, a
political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.
His life presidency aspirations could frustrate the feuding big-hitters of his ruling ZANU-PF party who have been trying for years to position themselves for a post-Mugabe political era.
They will also fuel criticism from opponents of the government, who say the internal conflict is distracting it from its job of dealing with a stagnating economy and responding to the worst drought in a generation - charges denied by ministers.
"Amid this looming starvation, coupled with an economy on the ropes, no one is paying attention to this national crisis. There is no government response as ZANU-PF is too pre-occupied with the succession issue of President Mugabe," main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Tuesday.
Critics blame Mugabe for many of the problems facing the country. They say his policies, including the seizures and redistribution of white-owned commercial farms, drove one of Africa's most promising economies into nearly a decade of deep recession until 2008 that cut its output almost in half.
They also say Zimbabwe's sluggish economy and low productivity - the jobless rate is around 85 percent - has left it ill-equipped to deal with the drought, which has left 3 million people in need of food aid, about a quarter of the population.
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