Guess who’s 88 today? It’s Zimbabwe’s Bob

HARARE: For the past few years – in the days leading up to February 21 – many Zimbabweans have said: “This is the last year the old man will be in power.”

Yet come the next year, there he still is – a year older, his face beaming out from the slavish Zanu-pf newspapers and his voice blaring from the Zimbabwe Broadcasting

(ZBC) with Corporation same vitriol.

Today is Robert Mugabe’s 88th birthday, and it is unlikely to be any different.

Last night he was on ZBC radio asserting his right to reject President Jacob Zuma as the regional mediator in the negotiations among the Zimbabwean parties because, he implied, Zuma was biased towards his rivals.

Mugabe has well-controlled

the prostate cancer and can’t stay awake for long in cabinet meetings, according to Welshman Ncube, the president of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Yet he is still in charge of Zimbabwe, as he has been for nearly 32 years.

Last night he was having a key meeting with MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, the prime minister in the unity government, and his deputy, Arthur Mutambara.

They were haggling, as they always do, about the many outstanding issues of the political agreement that brought the unity government to power.

But while they were talking, Zanu-pf bigwigs were scurrying around, as they do every year, raising money for Mugabe’s birthday party, to be held in poor Mutare, where the last small manufacturing companies have closed or are for sale. – Independent Foreign Service