Mugabe’s gaffes increase

via Mugabe’s gaffes increase – DailyNews Live 14 DECEMBER 2014 by GIFT PHIRI

HARARE – The woes of old age are catching up with President Robert Mugabe, with the 90-year-old increasingly jumbling his lines in actions synonymous with leaders getting old and falling apart.

While some are choosing to step down rather than suffer long declines, Mugabe  secured his Zanu PF party endorsement at the just-ended 6th congress to be the party’s 2018 presidential candidate, when he will be 94.

He made a damaging faux pas at the swearing-in ceremony of his two deputies and 11 ministers at State House on Friday where he mistakenly referred to vice president Phelekezela Mphoko as the new President. He said, “Mphoko is new president, vice president” before correcting himself.

At the Zanu PF congress last week, Mugabe shocked more that 12 000 delegates and millions watching live on television after he unwittingly chanted the slogan “Pasi neZanu PF”.

This came after his wife 49-year-old wife Grace had ordered him off the podium using a handwritten note. After going through the note, 15 minutes later and seemingly having forgotten he was holding it, Mugabe appeared unsettled before announcing he had been ordered by the First Lady to close his speech.

“My wife has written a note; she says I’m talking too much. That’s how I am treated even at home, so I must listen,” he chuckled before walking off the podium.

Spurning increasing calls to pass the crown to a successor and put the country in the hands of a new generation, Mugabe insists he is still fit to lead, despite his apparent difficulty in keeping up.

Just before the congress Mugabe suffered a serious lapse of concentration, damagingly blurting out that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had garnered 73 percent of the disputed 2008 presidential vote.

But minions of the country’s long-ruling leader quickly cut in, forcing the nonagenarian to backtrack, claiming it was a slip of the tongue.

Mugabe’s embarrassing faux pas was made as he addressed securocrats and war veterans at the Zanu PF headquarters.

Before he was corrected, Mugabe admitted that he and Zanu PF had not done well in the 2008 elections, going on to say Tsvangirai had garnered 73 percent of the presidential vote in the plebiscite.

“When we failed to, when Tsvangirai got 73 percent of the votes …,” Mugabe said before he was forcefully interjected by some securocrats.

“Oh, he got 47 percent of the votes and I got 43 percent,” he corrected himself, adding, “Vanhu (people) made noise. They said don’t worry, elections, no elections. I said we should have elections, there is no winner with this 50 plus  1 percent”.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, first as prime minister until 1987, and then executive president to date.

Despite the gaffes, Mugabe thinks he can remain in charge despite admitting that the wife tells him what to do.

“I am here for as long as I am still sane, with good memory and will power,” Mugabe said in his closing remarks to the congress.

“I thank God for giving me extra strength. I still have a bright mind; I still have will.”

While he possesses a fearsome puritanical streak, he regularly fulminates against the latest fashions, routinely attacking “guvhu out” or crop tops.

Mugabe’s rule has become paternalistic in the extreme: and his stodginess makes him seem more like a grandparent. Indeed, he is old enough to be the grandfather of many young Zimbabweans who dutifully follow his prescriptions.

Observers said Mugabe’s mental capacities in his 90s is not what they were in his heyday when he took part in the liberation struggle that ushered in black majority rule in 1980.

In recent days, he has shown that his short-term memory is often not as good, his ability to think quickly on his feet, to execute decisions is often not as good, and change is increasingly getting tougher to handle with age.

Turning 91 on February 21, he is facing extraordinary demands that would tax anybody’s physical and mental stamina.

Alex Magaisa, a former special advisor to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who shared power with Mugabe in an uneasy coalition government that ran Zimbabwe between 2009 and 2013, said it is one of the laws of nature, which no amount of scientific endeavour has as yet been able to reverse, that with advanced age, faculties become slower.

“The President has been highly favoured by his creator because he has lived to an age where most can only dream of and that he has done so as head of State is probably a feat that has no equal,” Magaisa said.

“But even his most loyal and ardent supporters must now surely admit that he is no longer a true representation of his old self.

“The younger Mugabe was erudite and eloquent. He graced the stage with great aplomb and never made the embarrassing gaffes that are now happening publicly and with worrying frequency. These are the kind of things that Kamuzu Banda was doing in the twilight of his long political career. These ‘Kamuzu Moments’, as I call them, will happen more frequently and they are not good for the man’s standing and legacy. Those around him must be kinder and gently manage him off the stage before further embarrassments happen.”

Health experts say half of people 85 and older have some dementia, usually Alzheimer’s. Dementia is a general term for a decline in mental ability severe enough to interfere with daily life. Memory loss is an example.

He said while people of privilege have better odds because they have access to good food and health care, and tend to lead clean lives, “it takes longer to make decisions, it takes longer to learn new things.”

UK-based Zimbabwean scholar and political analyst George Shire said if he lives to be 90 and he was in Mugabe’s shape, he would be mighty pleased.

“Robert Mugabe does not choose how old he is,” he said.

“What he has always, said is that he will continue to lead Zanu  PF as long as he is able to, that his party wants him to and continue to be President of the country for as long as he has the mandate of the people.  Thanks to new technology, I have seen and listened to nearly all the public speeches he has given and I am reliably informed that he is pretty tough, on the ball and a hardliner in cabinet and Politburo.”

Shire said in Mugabe, he saw somebody who is in control and has gotten even better as he grown older.

“There are times when ageism stands in the way of understanding things as they exist and not how one would like things to be,” he said.

“I think that Zanu PF’s ‘high command’ is in much better shape than it has ever been with a presidium deeply rooted in the history of the liberation struggle, the 1987 Unity Accord and a Politburo and Central Committee answerable to Congress and the party membership. Robert Mugabe’s ability to put his stamp and authority on the party says something about his stamina and capability. His wits are still in place.”