{"id":7401,"date":"2012-02-22T10:57:59","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T10:57:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.faceofmalawi.com\/?p=7401"},"modified":"2012-02-22T10:57:59","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T10:57:59","slug":"mugabe-says-ready-for-new-vote-after-resurrection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/2012\/02\/22\/mugabe-says-ready-for-new-vote-after-resurrection\/","title":{"rendered":"Mugabe says ready for new vote after ‘resurrection’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Africa’s oldest leader, declared himself as “fit as a fiddle” and pushed for new elections later this year as he celebrated his 88th birthday on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

“The day will come when I will become sick,” Mugabe said in an interview on state-owned Radio Zimbabwe, dismissing fears about his health.<\/p>\n

“As of now I am fit as a fiddle.”<\/p>\n

He poked fun at reports that suffers from a life-threatening disease.<\/p>\n

“I have died many times,” he said. “That’s where I have beaten Christ. Christ died once and resurrected once. I have died and resurrected and I don’t know how many times I will die and resurrect.”<\/p>\n

Mugabe, in power since independence in 1980, said he will stand again in new elections that he insisted should be held this year — with or without the new constitution required under Zimbabwe’s power-sharing deal with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.<\/p>\n

“I came from the people and the people, in their wisdom, our members of the party, will certainly select someone once I say I am now retiring, but not yet. At this age I can still go some distance, can’t I?”<\/p>\n

Mugabe was chosen in December by his ZANU-PF party to stand again as its presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

“There is no one who can stand and win at the moment,” he said of the contenders in his party jostling to succeed him.<\/p>\n

“We just must have elections. They just must take place with or without a new constitution. If others don’t want to have an election then they are free not to participate,” he told state television.<\/p>\n

“Nobody is forced to go to an election but definitely I will exercise my presidential powers in accordance with the main principal law, the constitution of our country, and announce when the election will take place.”<\/p>\n

Mugabe’s health has been the subject of much speculation, especially since WikiLeaks last year released a 2008 diplomatic cable saying central bank chief Gideon Gono had told then-US ambassador James McGee that Mugabe had prostate cancer and had been advised by doctors he had less than five years to live.<\/p>\n

Last year he visited Singapore several times, with his spokesman saying the president had gone for cataract surgery amid repeated media reports that he was suffering from cancer.<\/p>\n

Mugabe’s health has been cited as one reason that a faction of his ZANU-PF party has pushed to rush new elections.<\/p>\n

He turned 88 on Tuesday, marking the day with staffers and his wife Grace, sharing a birthday cake in the colours of the national flag.<\/p>\n

He will hold a public rally at a stadium in the eastern border city of Mutare on Saturday, where the celebrations will include a football match by major league teams and a concert featuring the country’s top musicians.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the state-run Herald newspaper carried 22 pages of messages congratulating the veteran ruler.<\/p>\n

Mugabe formed a power-sharing government with Tsvangirai in 2009 to mend an inflation-ravaged economy and avoid a political melt-down after a bloody presidential run-off election.<\/p>\n

The two rivals agreed to a raft of reforms including amending electoral and media laws and drafting a new constitution to pave the way to fresh polls.<\/p>\n

But work on the new charter has progressed in fits and starts, hindered by attacks on public outreach meetings by supporters of Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party.<\/p>\n

Mugabe has repeatedly pressed for elections this year, but the constitution-drafting commission says a referendum on the charter could not be held before August, meaning elections under the new constitution would not likely be possible until next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Africa’s oldest leader, declared himself as “fit as a fiddle” and pushed for new elections later […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[911,396],"class_list":["post-7401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","tag-mugabe","tag-zimbabwe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7401"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7401\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.faceofmalawi.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}