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Mugabe's birthday ramble another alarm bell for Zimbabwe
Dumisani Muleya, Business Day (SA)
February 22, 2006

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/topstories.aspx?ID=BD4A159007

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe gave a lengthy interview to state television on Sunday night to mark the occasion of his birthday yesterday — he turned 82. He spoke on a hotchpotch of unrelated subjects, which might prove a reality check for Zimbabwe’s citizens.

Mugabe spoke on issues spanning history, economics, politics, culture, morality, HIV/AIDS, his own personal health, his succession struggle, the performance of his cabinet, gay people, football and even Valentines Day.

He whinged about slavery and colonialism, neoimperialism, alleged plots to oust his regime, the dominance of the global order by the west and the United Nations reform agenda. He attacked US President George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for interfering in Zimbabwe’s internal affairs. African leaders were described as cowards for failing to tell Bush and Blair "to go to hell" after they rejected Mugabe’s disputed re-election in 2002.

South African President Thabo Mbeki, his Nigerian counterpart Olusegun Obasanjo and others who tried to resolve Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis were told to "keep away".

Posing as a moral knight, Mugabe also whined about cultural and moral decadence in Zimbabwe. He lashed out at gay people and youths who aped western culture. Mugabe’s cabinet ministers also came under fire for corruption and incompetence.

The International Monetary Fund was described as a monster and a political instrument for regime change.

On economic policy, he rejected orthodox ideas — "bookish economics" as he calls it — and vowed to pursue doggedly his own voodoo prescriptions. He said he would continue to print money on a massive scale to alleviate socioeconomic hardships.

Exonerating himself from any failure, Mugabe blamed capricious weather conditions and sanctions for the economic crisis in Zimbabwe.

Mugabe, on a lighter note, said his doctors had told him his health was good, to the extent that his bones were like those of "a 30-year-old boy".

He also spoke about football and what he had bought his wife, Grace, for Valentines Day.

To return a verdict on Mugabe’s interview: it provided the clearest sign yet that he is rapidly losing his grip on reality. Mugabe’s detachment from events on the ground and the situation around him shocked many. He appeared hopelessly handcuffed to the past, and confirmed that he is beyond his sell-by date as a leader.

Mugabe’s analysis of the current political and economic crisis was premised on shaky grounds, and was, in the end, barely interesting. Due to the lack of intelligent analysis, Mugabe was found wanting on real issues. He was unable to articulate the political, policy and institutional issues underlying the prevailing crisis. Eventually, he turned the interview into a platform for a "blame game" typical of a messy political endgame.

He further proved that he was not only a political dictator but an intellectual one as well, refusing to consider other people’s ideas. Describing others as intellectual slaves, Mugabe fails to realise that he himself is a prisoner of shibboleths of the past.

However, Mugabe’s interview provided interesting insights into his make-believe world. It showed he is rigidly opposed to reform. It indicated what he thinks about African leaders, including Mbeki: that they are not revolutionaries, but cowards.

The interview also exposed Mugabe’s threadbare grasp of modern economics and his struggle to get to grips with global dynamics. It helped to confirm his wholesale abdication of reason and a complete breakdown of common sense in government.

Mugabe avoided certain telling issues too, including the fact that state institutions and government departments — a vast swathe of the bureaucracy — have now collapsed due to leadership and policy failures. Zimbabwe has no effective means for policy formulation and implementation.

The situation is compounded by government’s failure to deliver even basic services — water, electricity, education, roads, transport and health care — the sort of things that make any government legitimate.

Without political legitimacy, nothing will work for Mugabe, who has shown he is indeed a man of the past.

*Muleya is Harare correspondent and Zimbabwe Independent news editor.

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