Mugabe needs walking stick: Opposition

By Mugove Tafirenyika

President Robert Mugabe should swallow his pride and accept a walking stick to support his body if he is to avoid the embarrassment of having to fall again in public, opposition parties have advised.

This followed the curious publication of Mugabe’s picture in a State-owned newspaper yesterday in which the 92-year-old is seen shaking hands with the wife of the late former Zimbabwe Farmers Union president, Silas Hungwe, with one of his aides helping him raise his right hand on Tuesday.

Commenting on the development, Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) deputy spokesperson Kudzai Mbudzi  raised fresh concerns over Mugabe’s health sarcastically suggesting that the nonagenarian better turn to a walking stick.

“I think the struggle now is about his incapacitation yet he wants to project himself as still fit. He is refusing a walking stick and I think we should help him realise and accept the truth,” Mbudzi said.

Last year, Mugabe fell off a stair case at the Harare International Airport as he walked off the podium in an incident that elicited loud gasps of concern both locally and internationally.

“Mugabe is now the one in opposition today because he no longer has support from anyone. What is now left of him is State presidency and a few hangers-on . . . I can tell you he will not afford even 10 percent of the national vote because of the discordant voices across the board from the security services, civil servants, students and everyone else, including business. Everyone now views him as a sell-out,” claimed Mbudzi.

Spokesperson of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC Obert Gutu, accused “some self-serving and corrupt hardliners in his faction-ridden and beleaguered Zanu PF party of urging him to hold onto power when it’s apparent that the old man has to take a rest as a matter of urgency”.

“At the very old and ripe age of 92 and still counting, Mugabe is anything but a young man. That picture of him being assisted to shake hands at a funeral tells a very big story. It is a sad story. The old man is virtually incapacitated, he no longer has the energy even to shake hands unassisted,”

Mugabe has however, insisted that he was still fit to run the country and that he was not feeling tired notwithstanding his frequent visits to Singapore where he is suspected to receive special medical care. Daily News