Mugabe crushes bigwigs’ dreams

Source: Mugabe crushes bigwigs’ dreams – DailyNews Live

STAFF WRITERS      20 February 2017

HARARE – There is gnashing of teeth among Zanu PF’s bigwigs hoping to
succeed President Robert Mugabe, after the country’s long-ruling leader
said pointedly that Zimbabweans did not feel that there was a worthy and
acceptable candidate among them to take over from him.

Speaking in his choreographed annual interview with ZBC last week, ahead
of his 93rd birthday tomorrow, Mugabe did not mince his words saying he
would soldier on in power – notwithstanding his advanced age and declining
health – and would only step down if Zanu PF asked him to do so.

The interview, excerpts of which were published in advance by government
newspapers yesterday, will be flighted by the State broadcaster tonight
and tomorrow evening.

Mugabe also used the interview to hit back at firebrand South African
opposition leader Julius Malema, a former ally turned foe, who recently
joined other prominent voices, asking the nonagenarian to step down.

“Do you listen to anything from Malema? Who is Malema? The call to step
down must come from my party, my party at congress, my party at central
committee … I will step down.

“But then what do you see? It’s the opposite. They want me to stand for
elections. They want me to stand for elections everywhere in the party.

“Of course, if I feel that I can’t do it anymore, I will say so to my
party so that they relieve me. But for now I think I can’t say so … The
majority of the people feel that there is no replacement, a successor who
to them is acceptable, as acceptable as I am,” Mugabe said.

“But the people, you know, would want to judge everyone else on the basis
of president Mugabe as the criteria.

“But I have been at it for a longer period than anyone else and leaders
will have to be, as it were, given time to develop and to have the ability
to meet with the people and to be judged by the people.

“Silently, in the majority of cases, the people must see and be convinced
that yes, so and so can be the successor.

“Others think, yaa, yaa, that they are this in the party, they are capable
of succeeding the president. It’s not that easy,” he added as he rubbished
his ambitious lieutenants.

Asked a follow-up question to afford him to drive the point home,
regarding whether he was grooming a successor, Mugabe said emphatically
that he would not do that.

“A successor is groomed by the people. Those around you can get the
confidence of the people as they operate around you, and gain the
confidence of the people, you see.

“When the people see that they trust their leaders, (that they are) beyond
corruption, (that) their leaders (are) knowledgeable, sure that’s
grooming,” he said.

Mugabe also said he was confident Zanu PF would win next year’s
much-anticipated national elections as long as the ruling party – wracked
by its deadly tribal, factional and succession wars – closed ranks.

“Zanu PF is ever-ready for elections. But we need to ensure unity, (that)
we don’t have differences that can mar our participation in elections. We
have been in this game for a long time.

“We are not vanaZim First. They are born in the morning and before sunset
it has become something else … There is no opposition at all,” he said.

Mugabe also pooh-poohed the opposition’s planned grand alliance, saying it
would be a coming together of weaklings.

“If they want a coalition, if they believe that a coalition can save them
so why the dilly-dallying about it? But now Mai Mujuru is apparently
divorced, left in that situation which appears to be without anyone who
matters, politically.

“(Opposition leader Morgan) Tsvangirai will say ah, you are now only an
individual. Ini ndine party kaini (I’ve a party and you don’t). And yes,
he has a party.

“My party cannot have a coalition with an individual. Iwe kana uchida
unojoina wouya pasi pangu (so, if you want to join me you will be a junior
partner).

“She (Mujuru) might have to do that perhaps to save her political skin.
But that will be the final blow to her political life,” he said.

On clergymen who have “prophesied” his pending death, Mugabe said he would
not lose sleep over them.

“So-called prophets … why don’t you say prophets of doom? They are
prophets of doom who prophesy what really are their wishes. They turn
their wishes into prophesies, or dreams perhaps, but hardly any
(prophecies).

“I would want to think they are just wishes that this man must go. This
man must go, and so year in and year out it’s the same wish. And so they
say prophesy.

“Why do you care about them? I don’t care about them anymore? We had even
some pastors praying for my death and even a bishop in my church,
wekuMatabeleland uya watakazo bata aine mudzimai, akazviregera (the one
from Matabeleland whom we caught sleeping around, resulting in him mending
his wayward ways).

“So you get these things in society … Ndakanzwa chimwe chichiti
president ari kufa in October asi kana asingade kufa ngaataure (I heard
one of them saying I will die in October and that if I don’t want to die I
should say so). So there it is. I don’t pay them much attention,” Mugabe
said.

State newspapers said yesterday that Mugabe also spoke about corruption
and powerful First Lady Grace Mugabe’s dramatic entry into politics among
other issues.

Zanu PF is deeply divided over Mugabe’s succession, with a faction of
young party Turks going by the moniker Generation 40 (G40) rabidly opposed
to Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa succeeding the nonagenarian, and
squaring up against the VP’s allies, Team Lacoste.

Mugabe’s failure to name a successor has led to persistent suspicions that
he wants to lead Zanu PF and Zimbabwe for life.

On Friday, while addressing a rally in Buhera North, his wife appeared to
give fresh legs to the loud whispers within the ruling party that her
husband wants to rule Zimbabwe for life – particularly as she also went on
to tell the gathered crowd that if Mugabe were to die, Zimbabweans would
vote for his corpse.

“You will hear people saying you want Mugabe to continue so that you will
remain as the first lady.

“It’s unfair. Don’t expect me to tell him to retire when there are
millions who voted for him.

“There can be miracles. If God decides that Mugabe should go and we put
pictures of his corpse on the ballot paper, people will still vote for him
and he will win the election,” Grace told Zanu PF supporters.

In May last year, Grace stunned thousands of Zanu PF supporters who had
gathered in Harare for a solidarity rally with her husband when she said
Mugabe would rule Zimbabwe from the grave.

“We want you to lead this country from your grave, while you lie at the
National Heroes’ Acre,” she said.

Speaking during a rally at Murehwa Business Centre in 2015, the
influential first lady also warned Zanu PF heavyweights that she was going
to design a special wheelchair from which Mugabe would rule until he was
100 years old.

“We are going to create a special wheelchair for president Mugabe until he
rules to 100 years because that is what we want.

“That is the people’s choice. We want a leader that respects us,” she
said.

The Zanu PF youth league has also since formally moved a motion, at the
ruling party’s annual conference which was held in Masvingo last December,
for Mugabe to be declared life president.