Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe turns 91 today, with his supporters saying they will back him to run his full term until 2018 and beyond despite nagging questions about his health and an economy that is crumbling under his watch.
Mugabe's recent fall at Harare Airport fuelled renewed speculation that old age is catching up with the man who has led Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. The spry Mugabe, however, succeeded in breaking his fall and apparently was not injured. His officials say he is in good health.
In addition to being in power in Zimbabwe, this year Mugabe is also chairman of the 54-nation African Union and the 15-nation Southern African Development Community.
Low key events marked today's birthday but lavish celebrations are planned next Saturday (February 28) in the resort town of Victoria Falls. Those celebrations will be held by the 21st February Movement, the group that has planned Mugabe's birthday celebrations since 1986. Members of Mugabe's ruling party, ZANU-PF, say they are raising more than USD 1 million for the festivities.
The celebrations are leaving a sour taste in the mouth for some Zimbabweans battling to survive under economic deterioration that has led to company closures, massive unemployment and successive food shortages.
Zimbabwe's once prosperous economy took a severe knock in 2000 when Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms. Allegations of vote-rigging and violence in elections that year brought the United States and the European Union to impose travel and financial sanctions on Mugabe, his inner circle and some state institutions and firms.
An empowerment law forcing foreigners to sell at least 51 percent of their shareholding to government-approved black Zimbabweans has scared investors, said economist John Robertson. Mugabe's "Look East" policy encouraging Chinese investment has failed to stabilize the economy, he said.
"The celebrations show what has gone wrong in this country. Only those close to Mugabe feast while the rest of us starve. Look around, everyone is now a vendor," said John Ratambwa, an unemployed 23-year old Harare resident. "At 91 one has to rest. Ninety-one years is too old an age to lead a vast country like Zimbabwe," he said in downtown Harare, whose sidewalks now teem with people selling wares.
The African Development Bank says 65 per cent of Zimbabweans now rely on the informal sector for survival due to the decline in industry. Mugabe's government in the past year has struggled to pay its workers.
