Zimbabwe’s state-run media lavished praise on veteran President Robert Mugabe on the 83rd birthday of Africa’s oldest-serving leader on Wednesday while stores in the capital, Harare, ran out of bread.
”President an unparalleled visionary,” read the headline of the Herald newspaper, which dedicated 16 pages to pictures and congratulatory messages to the man who has ruled the country since independence from Britain in 1980.
The Defence Ministry took out a half-page advert in the same paper in which a procession of military chiefs lined up to laud Mugabe for his ”heroic guidance and leadership during and after the liberation struggle”.
But as constant refrains of the song God bless President Mugabe rang out on state radio, the impact of the economic crisis being presided over by the president came into focus as bakers halted bread production.
A lavish party is due to be held on Saturday in the city of Gweru to celebrate Mugabe, but critics say the traditional birthday bash is particularly ill-conceived this year with much of the population now forced to skip meals.
With inflation running at nearly 1 600% and much of the public sector on strike, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is sniffing the opportunity to capitalise on unrest with the country’s founding father.
But in an eve-of-birthday interview on Tuesday night, Mugabe struck a familiar note of defiance by insisting that there was no vacancy at the top.
”There are no vacancies because I am still there. Can you see you any vacancies? The door is closed,” he told his interviewer.
And in a shot across the bows of any potential successors within his own Zanu-PF party, Mugabe also denounced his Cabinet.
”It’s in regard to the issue of honesty that I find many of them deficient,” he said.
Mugabe has previously said he would step down at the end of his current term in 2008 but his ruling party last December passed a resolution — still to be approved by the central committee — to extend his rule by another two years in order to have concurrent presidential and parliamentary polls.
Despite attempts by police to ban protests, MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai has vowed to push ahead with his campaign to topple Mugabe.
The octogenarian ruler is also facing a mammoth task to stop unrest in the public sector with doctors and teachers on strike over poor pay, while civil servants are also contemplating a job boycott.
The economic crisis has not dissuaded loyalists, however, from trying to raise Z$300-billion Zimbabwe (US$1,2-million) for Saturday’s party.
”It highlights the insensitive nature of the regime to use so much money on a single day when the money could be used to feed more people,” said Jacob Mafume, coordinator of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, a grouping of rights and labour groups.
Opposition spokesperson and youth leader Nelson Chamisa said: ”These people have the audacity to be feasting when the money could have been used in other critical areas like health or to start long-term projects.
Once unheard of food shortages in Southern Africa’s former breadbasket are now commonplace. Products like milk and jam have long been struck off most shopping lists as households struggle to make ends meet.
Until now, most families had at least been able to afford bread as the price of a loaf was dictated by the government.
But most bread shelves in the capital lay empty on Wednesday after the National Bakers’ Association claimed that government price controls and escalating production costs had made their businesses unviable and left their industry ”seriously bleeding”. — Sapa-AFP