Zimbabwe’s veteran leader Robert Mugabe reiterated on Tuesday there was no vacancy for the country’s presidency, warning ambitious government colleagues to stop jostling to succeed him.
In a defiant interview marking his 83rd birthday, Mugabe also lashed out at ”corrupt” ministers in his Cabinet and what he regarded as growing avarice among senior members of his ruling party.
”Obviously there will come a time when I will go,” Mugabe said in an interview aired on national television and the country’s four radio stations on the eve of his birthday.
”Of course they can debate [the succession] process, saying how do we do it and so on. But what it has done, goodness me, is to let out ambitious people going out in various directions and every individual on the upper echelon is now looking at himself, saying, wondering which position they will occupy.”
”Even where they are not thinking of themselves being president they are thinking in terms of where they will be and who they should support and those who think they are most immediate are resorting to all kinds of frauds.”
Mugabe, in power since independence from British rule in 1980, is coming under growing pressure with inflation running at around 1 600% and escalating strike action in the public sector.
Previously unheard of food shortages are now widespread, with around 80% of the population living below the poverty line.
Mugabe has indicated in the past he would step down when his current term elapses in 2008.
But his supporters passed a resolution at the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) annual convention to extend Mugabe’s term by another two years next year in order to have presidential and parliamentary polls at the same time in 2010. The move still needs to be approved by the Zanu-PF central committee next month and by Parliament.
The succession issue has divided the ruling party into camps between supporters of Vice-President Joyce Mujuru, anointed by Mugabe as his possible successor, and those backing rural housing minister Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Mugabe has also previously castigated senior party officials he said were consulting traditional spiritual healers to enhance their chances to succeed him.
Mugabe said in the interview the majority of his Cabinet was lacking in honesty, had a propensity to amass riches and was involved in corruption.
”It’s in regard to the issue of honesty that I find many of them deficient,” he said. ”I don’t want to work with people who cheat and who think they should work in every company that makes money.”
Mugabe also attacked his arch-foe, the British Prime Minister Tony Blair, accusing him of ganging up with Bush on a false pretext to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe.
”We have not wronged the Americans,” he said, adding that his problems with Blair were over Mugabe’s controversial land reforms.
”But Blair has persuaded Bush to support him on Zimbabwe. Bush says ‘Blair has supported me on Iraq so I must be seen to be supporting him on Zimbabwe’.” ‒ Sapa-AFP