I'm Already President – Grace Mugabe

Harare – Zimbabwean First Lady Grace Mugabe has reportedly told the ruling Zanu-PF party women's league that she is already the president, as she "plans and does everything with President Robert Mugabe."

*Grace Mugabe

 According to NewsDay, Mashonaland West Zanu-PF women's league chairperson Angeline Muchemeyi said that Grace told them that there was no point for her fighting to be vice president, a lesser position, when she was already running State affairs.

Grace is currently the Zanu-PF women's league secretary, a position she has held since 2014.

"The First Lady said 'I'm the wife of the president, I'm the president already … I plan and do everything with the president, what more do I want, for now the position of the women boss is enough'," Muchemeyi was quoted as saying.

Who Could Replace Robert Mugabe In Zimbabwe? [VIDEO]

*President Mugabe and wife, Grace

At 92 years of age, Robert Mugabe is the oldest-serving head of state on the African continent, and one of the oldest in the world.

But as time goes on and the president’s health comes under scrutiny, the national conversation in Zimbabwe is increasingly dominated by calls for Mugabe to step down and debates about who could replace him.

Earlier in April, thousands of supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, led by Morgan Tsvangirai, took to the streets in the capital Harare in the biggest opposition demonstration seen in Zimbabwe for years. Despite calls from the influential veterans of Zimbabwe’s independence war—in which the president himself fought—to step aside, Mugabe remains resolute as ever, saying he will stay in the post until he is 100 and will only hand over the presidency when “God says ‘come.’”

Newsweek considers who might replace the country’s only post-independence leader when—and if—he steps down.

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE REPORT 

Opposition Youths Protest Against Mugabe's Birthday Bash

*Robert Mugabe, with wife and children, cut his 92nd birthday
cake during a  'surprise' Birthday party for him by his staff 

A group of youths belonging to Zimbabwe's opposition have protested against plans to hold another birthday party for President Robert Mugabe in Masvingo this weekend.

Mugabe's staff held a 'surprise' 92nd birthday party for the president on Monday in Harare, complete with an elaborate cake, the official Chronicle newspaper reported.

A photograph posted to Twitter by Morgan Tsvangirai ally, Chalton Hwende, showed a small group of youths holding posters demonstrating along a major street in Masvingo. One of the posters read, "We want jobs not bash" in a reference to the birthday party, due to be held on Saturday in the drought-stricken province.

Said @hwende: "MDC-T Youths today [Tuesday] in Masvingo demonstrated against the hosting of a $800 000 (R12 million) Mugabe birthday party."

Movement for Democratic Change spokesperson, Obert Gutu, said he had heard that members of the party's youth assembly had staged a demonstration in Masvingo but he was unable to give further details.

He hinted that there would be more "activity" in the next few days.

Mugabe's first birthday party was actually not a surprise at all, the Chronicle reported the president as saying. "Every year, I now know that once I strike another birthday, this event is bound to follow," he said.

Footage of the party showed Mugabe and his wife Grace seated on a pink sofa while his staff sang several verses of Happy Birthday. 

Grace Has Replaced Robert Mugabe – Tsvangirai

Zimbabwe’s aging President Robert Mugabe has been “surreptitiously but willingly” replaced by his wife Grace, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claimed Monday.

  Grace Mugabe, 50, had taken over in a “palace coup” and no one in government was doing anything about the country’s crisis, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader said in an end-of-year message. “No one in government is thinking of solutions to the national challenges as everyone is preoccupied with issues of who will succeed this tired man steering the ship of State,” he said.

  “There is no boldness to confront the national crisis; what with an aged president and everyone around him fighting to succeed him,” Tsvangirai added, highlighting Zimbabwe’s growing unemployment and hunger.

Zimbabwean Presidency: War Veterans Reject Grace Mugabe

WAR Veterans, a key power broker in Zanu PF, have amplified their calls for the party to appoint one of their own as national commissar and for the re-adoption of the women’s quota system in the presidium.

*Grace Mugabe (pix:Independent)

Crucially however, the ex-fighters made it clear that President Robert Mugabe’s wife, Grace, should remain where she is up “to 2018 and beyond”, suggesting they would not back her as party leader.

Grace heads the party’s Women’s League but is widely thought to be angling to take over from her soon-to-be 92 husband.

The Matabeleland and Bulawayo chapters of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA), in a statement this week, took aim at Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko and party commissar Saviour Kasukuwere.

In a resolution which they said reflected the ZNLWVA national executive’s will, the war veterans demanded that “the political commissariat post of the party (Zanu –PF) be held by war veteran members with good revolutionary credentials.”

Since assuming this influential party position Kasukuwere, who is also a local government minister, has been on a collision course with war veterans, especially their leader Christopher Mutsvangwa.

Kasukuwere and Mutsvangwa have fallen out with both individuals reportedly plotting the ouster of the other from their influential and powerful positions.

Be Wary of Unbridled Ambitions – Mugabe Warns Party Leaders

Transcript President Robert Gabriel Mugabe's speech to the Central Committee at the ongoing 15th National People's Conference yesterday.

*President Robert Mugabe 

Cde Vice President and Second Secretary Emmerson Mnangagwa,

Cde Vice President and Second Secretary Phelekezela Mphoko,

The Secretary for Administration Cde Ignatius Chombo,

All Politburo members, and members of the Central Committee here present.

Ladies and gentlemen, Comrades and friends

May I welcome you all to the 15th National People's Conference's Central Committee meeting, which we are holding after our Politburo on Monday.

Comrades, as we meet today, all our departments have been hard at work mobilising people and other resources towards this year's annual people's conference.

We thank the party leadership in Matabeleland North for taking the lead and all the other provincial leaderships for co-operating closely with the host province. We all realise that the responsibility for ensuring an effective conference falls on all of us especially those of us in leadership at various levels of the party. Matabeleland North deserves all our support especially given the background on drought which has affected most of the country.

Cdes, we meet today as the Central Committee to review the party's performance in the year about to end, the year 2015. We are happy to note that there is ample evidence that the party is getting stronger and stronger by the day. What with the resounding victories that we have been scoring in all the recent by-elections. I want to say congratulations.

Those by-elections have been key to testing the strength of the party from the point of view of its membership, the efficacy of its organs, rules and mobilisation strategies and we can say for now, anyway, and I hope for the future also, for now we rule the roost and I hope we do so in the future.

We have gained foothold, nay embedded ourselves, in those areas hitherto perceived as the domain of the opposition. However, we should never allow complacency to set in. We must remain on our toes, remain on the road with meetings taking place in different parts of the country every week.

While credit for the good image and standing of the party is shared by all of us, allow me to single out the Women's League and the Commissariat for working tirelessly in mobilising and keeping the party alive. That is as it should be and should be all the time.

Robert Mugabe: Double Celebration At 91?

By Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye

Last Saturday (February 21, 2015), President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the oldest head of state on planet earth, turned 91. He has ruled Zimbabwe for 35 years – since 1980 when the country gained independence from Britain.

Supported by wife, Grace, and children, Mugabe 

cuts his 91st Birthday Cake on 28 February 2015

 at Elephant Hills, Victoria Falls

For many years now, Mugabe’s birthday bash has become a big, lavish event in Zimbabwe – a country where majority of its 14 million people live below the poverty level. This year’s celebrations which will be held a week later on February 28 will, according to reports take place at a “championship golf course at Elephant Hills, a plush hotel resort with spa, pool and tennis courts near the Victoria Falls.”  

The ceremony is estimated to cost about US$1million (one million dollars) and part of the money is being sourced from the citizens. There were even reports that some impoverished villagers are also being compelled to “freely donate” money so that Mugabe could have his big party. Zimbabwe’s Daily News quotes the head of the Progressive Teachers’ Union, Mr. Raymond Majongwe, as saying that teachers all over the country are being forced to part with between one to ten dollars (depending on the status of the school where one is teaching) to fund the very expensive feast. This has however, been denied by Tongai Kasukuwere, the Finance Secretary of the ruling Zanu-PF’s Youth League who urged anyone “being forced to donate to the gala [to] report to the police.”

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has, however, dismissed Mugabe’s birthday party as an “obscene jamboree.”

Is Robert Mugabe’s Fall Symbolic?

Ugochukwu Ejinkeonye  

Not a few across the world are convinced that it has become completely impossible to feel any sympathy for President Robert Mugabe no matter what happens to him. Mugabe’s 35-year old rule which has rewarded Zimbabweans with untold hardship has continued to defy any attempt at rationalization.

Robert Mugabe tripped and fell at Harare Airport 

But when he tripped on a red carpeted staircase last Wednesday (February 4, 2015) and came crashing down to the ground as he descended a podium at the Harare International Airport after addressing a very enthusiastic crowd of Zimbabweans, I could not help nursing some discomfort over the prompt, massive celebrations that greeted the accident across the world. I almost found myself agreeing with the Zimbabwean Information Minister, Jonathan Moyo, that the global bacchanal over Mugabe’s tumble amounted to “morbid celebrations.”  

Mugabe must have been in a very pleasant mood that Wednesday. He had just returned from the 24th African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa where, despite stiff oppositions from Civil Society organisations, he was crowned the new Chairman of the 54-nation body, a position that would now afford him a more elevated platform to periodically deliver well-aimed sound bites to the West, his mortal enemies.

Also, as his plane touched down in Harare and he saw such a large crowd of supporters waiting to receive him, he must have reassured himself that his western antagonists would once more get the message he has been trying hard to send across to them, namely, that he is still in power because Zimbabweans want him. 

Robert Mugabe Prepares For Lavish 91st Birthday Celebrations

Zimbabwe’s president and guests to enjoy a $1m party at a luxury golf course amid widespread child malnutrition and high unemployment

President Robert Mugabe enjoys his 85th birthday
cake in in 2009 
(Pix: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters)

By David Smith

John F Kennedy being serenaded by Marilyn Monroe apart, most presidents tend to make their birthdays private, low-key affairs. Not Robert Mugabe. Year after year the leader of Zimbabwe holds a lavish celebration, regardless of the state of the economy, and his 91st birthday will be no different. 

There will be music, dancing and elephant meat on the menu as an estimated 20,000 guests gather on a luxury golf course near Victoria Falls for a jamboree set to cost at least $1m (£650,000). Opposition MPs have branded the feast obscene in a country where the UN says one in three children are stunted because of hunger.

Robert Mugabe Falls At Harare International Airport

As he left the podium after addressing supporters... 

Mugabe falls after addressing supporters at Harare
International Airport

Zimbabwe's 90-year-old president, Robert Mugabe, fell down a staircase Wednesday as he left the podium after a speech.

There was no indication Mugabe was hurt by the fall, and presidential spokesman George Charamba refused to discuss the incident with reporters.  

The president had just finished addressing supporters at Harare International Airport upon his return from an African Union summit in Ethiopia, where he was elected AU chairman.

Witnesses say Mugabe missed a step and fell while walking down the stairs. The president was helped to his feet by aides, who escorted him to a waiting car while dusting off his suit.

Video of the incident 

Security agents quickly rounded up journalists covering the event and ordered them to delete all pictures of Mugabe's fall.

Journalists have often complained of censorship in Zimbabwe, where Mugabe has ruled with an iron fist for nearly 35 years.

Civil society groups opposed his election as AU chair because of alleged election rigging and human rights abuses.

 -VOANews