Mugabe rejects ill health talk but faces rising public anger

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe returned home from abroad in a jovial mood on Saturday, poking fun at the latest online media speculation that he was gravely ill and had sought medical help in Dubai.

92 year old Mugabe, came back to the grim reality of rising public anger over an economic meltdown widely blamed on his misrule, with violence erupting a week ago when police fired teargas at opposition leaders and protesters.

Reports that Mugabe’s health is declining have become common in recent years, but the veteran politician, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, often refers to himself as “fit as a fiddle”.

On Saturday Mugabe, speaking to journalists at Harare international airport, also told anti-government protesters that “enough is enough.”

Recent protests have seen police firing teargas at opposition leaders and hundreds of demonstrators, angered by an economic meltdown, cash shortages and high unemployment.

“The so called protesters who have gone about burning property and looting it and committing acts of violence. But of course we can’t allow them to continue on these violent demonstrations unimpeded. No – enough is enough,” said Mugabe.

Mugabe rejects the blame for a crisis currently manifesting itself in acute cash shortages and high unemployment, and last week warned protesters there would be no “Arab Spring” in Zimbabwe, referring to the uprisings that toppled several Arab leaders.

He routinely blames Zimbabwe’s economic problems on sabotage by Western opponents of his policies, such as the seizure of white-owned commercial farms for black people.

Last week Mugabe accused Western countries, including the United States, of sponsoring recent anti-government protests.

But even some of his once stalwart supporters, including Zimbabwe’s war veterans who invaded white commercial farms in support of Mugabe’s land seizures, have turned their backs on him, saying he has “devoured” the values of the liberation struggle.

Zimbabwe, which has also been hit by drought and weak commodity prices, is struggling to pay salaries to soldiers, police and other public workers, fuelling political tensions, including within the ruling ZANU-PF.

Divisions have emerged inside the party as senior officials position themselves for power after the veteran leader is gone, with one faction supporting Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa while another backs first lady Grace Mugabe.