Business Day
By Ray Ndlovu
16th January 2014
IN A move that is raising eyebrows in Zimbabwe, Vice-President Joice Mujuru, the frontrunner to succeed 89-year-old President Robert Mugabe, will continue her unusually long stint as acting head of state until the end of this month.
This is understood to be the longest period that Ms Mujuru has served as acting president, having temporarily taken over last month. Mr Mugabe is on his annual leave but there has been speculation in social media about the state of his health since returning home from Singapore last weekend.
He turns 90 on February 21 and is serving his seventh term after he and the ruling Zanu (PF) party scored landslide wins in last year’s general elections.
Zimbabwe’s internet mole, Baba Jukwa, kicked off the speculation about the president on Facebook, alleging that he was seriously ill. Zanu (PF) officials trashed talk of Mr Mugabe’s ill health as “absolute nonsense” designed to cause “fear, alarm and despondency”.
But Zimbabweans noted the absence of any topical official pictures of the veteran ruler’s homecoming from his holiday break in the Far East. Instead state media used archive photographs in reports on Mr Mugabe’s return.
The Herald newspaper ran a picture of him returning from an African Union summit held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January last year. The president was last seen in public on December 29, as he left for the Far East, and previously on December 22, while presiding over the unveiling of a statue in honour of the late vice-president, Joshua Nkomo, in Bulawayo.
Mr Mugabe’s spokesman, George Charamba, said in a statement the president would spend the remainder of his leave in the country but made no reference to the health issue. Over the years, reports of Mr Mugabe’s failing health have been repeatedly confounded by public appearances where he has displayed remarkable physical form for a man of his age.
Ordinary people in Harare, Bulawayo and other cities went about their business as normal yesterday, unfazed by the chatter on social media platforms.
Award-winning author Petina Gappah, who has relocated to Harare, wrote on her Facebook page: “OK. I am now getting worried.
“I have foreign news agencies writing to ask me to prepare some ‘reflections on Mr Mugabe ’ and they want this in the next two weeks. What is happening to my President? Where is he?”
David Coltart — a former education, sport, arts and culture minister in the coalition government that ended last July — wrote on Facebook : “I think the most telling thing was the Herald’s attempt to dupe the public by printing last year’s photo, but against that we know there have been so many reports in the past that one should treat this with caution.
“I think we will know when he is in serious trouble, because I suspect that tension in the military will rise dramatically — something I have not sensed thus far.”
Political analyst Charles Mangongera played down the latest rumours. “I wouldn’t read too much into it.
“It has almost become routine that as soon as Mr Mugabe goes on his annual vacation the rumour mill goes into full swing, speculating on the state of his health. I think he is alive and well, although it must be worrying for him and his inner circle that so many people seem not to want him to be.”