I’m not about to step down, says Mugabe

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe this weekend made it very clear that he is not about to step down leaving behind a fractured party.

He said he was taking his time to anoint a successor until he is convinced that the party is united and that the person to succeed him has attained the same “stature and acceptance as I have managed to secure over the years for the party”.

“There is the issue that the President is going, I am not going, that the president is dying, I am not dying,” the president said while addressing his fifth youth interface rally in Chinhoyi, Mashonaland West Province, on Saturday.

He said despite his advanced age, he was still strong enough to continue as president, adding that recently his doctors were surprised that “I have a very strong bone system” which he attributed to routine body exercise.

“I will have an ailment here and there and I go to the doctors like anyone else. But body wise all my organs, the heart, the liver are very firm, very strong,” Mugabe said.

Turning to factionalism rocking his party, Mugabe said some of those aspiring for presidency were tribalists who cannot unite the party and Zimbabweans.

“Some are divided tribally and look down upon each other and once you have that kind of talk, then you are not going to be a uniting person at all,” Mugabe said.

He spoke after his wife last week urged him to name a successor and tame the current infighting within his ruling Zanu-PF party over his succession.

Mugabe asked those fanning factionalism to “stop it” and urged warring party members to discuss and resolve their differences amicably. The 93-year-old leader will seek re-election in next year’s presidential polls after being endorsed by his party. But intense infighting continues in his party over his succession.