Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s successor will not be named until 2006, the state-run Sunday Mail said in an apparent bid to quash speculation the 78-year-old longtime leader could be replaced.
Nathan Shamuyarira, information secretary in Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF), was quoted by the paper as saying the issue would be discussed at a party congress in 2006.
The paper said the news had ”scuppered frenzied speculation” in the private media that a Zanu-PF conference due later this month would name a candidate to contest the next presidential election in
2008.
The private press regularly speculates on possible successors to Mugabe, who has held power in this southern African nation since 1980, first as prime minister and later as president.
This year he won a new six-year term in a hard-fought election against Morgan Tsvangirai (50) of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Western observers said the poll was not free or fair. – Sapa-AFP