Is Mugabe too old to rule us for another five years?

A ploy to rule forever

“Zimbabwe urgently needs a new competent government with national and international goodwill under a new leader, not a reshuffled cabinet led by a failed and discredited sunset president who wants to cling onto power through mendacious means when he should be leaving office.” (October 29, 2006)

“The time has come for Zimbabweans in crucial national positions in government and related state institutions and within Zanu (PF) itself to realise and acknowledge without fear or favour that the problem is manifestly Mugabe.” (October 29, 2006)

“He simply does not want to become a living former president with weakened immunity liable to prosecution by his successor or anybody else in or outside Zimbabwe with a human rights bone to chew with him.” (October 29, 2006)

“A backdoor re-entry into power without the democratic mandate of the people through the polls is by definition not dignified.” (October 29, 2006)

“It is imperative that Zimbabweans from across the political divide do everything they can to reject Mugabe’s triple strategy of seeking to remain president for life outside the electoral process for personal reasons of protecting his immunity to the detriment of the national interest. (October 29, 2006)

“The end of executive rule has finally come for Robert Mugabe who has had his better days after a quarter of a century in power. That Mugabe must now go is no longer a dismissible opposition slogan but a strategic necessity that desperately needs urgent legal and constitutional action by Mugabe himself well ahead of the presidential election scheduled for March 2008 in order to safeguard Zimbabwe’s national interest, security and sovereignty.” (October 29, 2006)

Mugabe should go

“After 25 years of controversial rule and with the economy melting down as a direct result of that rule, Mugabe’s continued stay in office has become such an excessive burden to the welfare of the state and such a fatal danger to the public interest of Zimbabweans at home and in the diaspora that each day that goes by with him in office leaves the nation’s survival at great risk while seriously compromising national sovereignty.” (October 29, 2006)

“Mugabe has publicly demonstrated his leadership incapacity to make way for an able and dynamic successor by succumbing to manipulative tribal pressure.” (October 29, 2006)

“Mugabe now lacks the vision, stature and energy to effectively run the country, let alone his party. He is without compassion, maybe because he is now too old, too tired and not in the best of health.

His failure to visit stranded families left homeless and suffering from the irrational acts of his own government speaks volumes of his cold and cruel leadership style.” (October 29, 2006)

“Mugabe has lost influence and is now viewed with suspicion or cynicism or both by his peers in the Sadc, African Union and across the developing world where he used to enjoy considerable authority. Of course, Mugabe is still respected as an old man and he still makes very interesting bombastic speeches that are applauded for their entertainment value and which are full of sound and fury but signifying precious little at the level of policy and action.” (October 29, 2006)

Too tired

“President Mugabe is now too old despite his photogenic makeup, has become very tired, visionless and beleaguered. Mugabe remains in office not because he is in charge of the goings-on in the wider society but largely if not only because of considerations of his personal and family security in a world that is increasingly becoming hostile to former heads of state with unresolved human rights and corruption issues during their rule.” (August 17, 2007)

“Mugabe simply does not have the leadership vision and capacity to pull Zimbabwe from the woods. He is just not that kind of leader.” (August 17, 2007)

Irresponsible endorsement

“If President Robert Mugabe truly and honestly believes that he is a serious presidential candidate in the general election scheduled for March 2008 and that he can best govern this battered country until 2013 should he win, then he miserably failed to demonstrate that at the controversial Zanu (PF) extraordinary congress.” (December 24, 2007)

“Nobody in Zanu (PF) actually supports Mugabe’s candidacy. Everyone understands that it is wrong and the most telling statement in that regard is the holding of a sham special congress when a national people’s conference was in order.” (December 24, 2007)

Stomaching defeat

“If there is one sobering thing that can be unequivocally said about why the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has scandalously delayed the announcement of the March 29 presidential election, it is simply that President Robert Mugabe did not win the election and is now desperately trying to steal the result through an unjustified recount because he does not have any prospect of winning a run-off or a re-run.” (April 13, 2008)

“The dissolution of the cabinet in March did not affect the embattled Mugabe who appointed it and who, even if defeated on March 29, is nevertheless empowered by Section 29 of the Constitution to unhappily continue in office until the person elected as President on March 29 takes over the reins of governance.” (April 13, 2008)

“The voters rejected Mugabe on March 29 and officialdom must unconditionally and graciously accept that electoral verdict in the national interest.” (April 13, 2008)

“Mugabe simply cannot win any election; not even one which is neither free nor fair in his favour. Mugabe’s days of electoral victories are irretrievably gone.” (April 13, 2008)