Mugabe: 'When my term ends, I will retire'

Mugabe: 'When my term ends, I will retire'

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By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe has reaffirmed his desire to leave office when his current term expires in 2008.

Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe's independence from white minority rule in 1980, will be 84 when his term expires.

Talking to journalists in Indonesia where he is currently on a state visit, Mugabe said: "I have said it before that when my term ends, I will retire. I still have to do three years and we will look at that after the three years but it is my intention to retire.

"I will never groom a successor. We will never do that. We will never make that mistake. You get somebody going round saying ‘can’t you see he has come to my house, you see he is grooming me’.

"But one hopes in the meantime one or two will come forward and make the grade that the people will choose from.

"Of course, the leader will come from Zanu-PF. We are the party that defeated colonialism and the people realise that. The other party is Mr Blair’s (British Prime Minister) party and if you followed our election the objective was to bury Mr Blair.

"Mr Blair had said he was working with the MDC in order to bring about regime change in Zimbabwe. Just imagine, the Prime Minister of Britain saying he is working with a political party in Zimbabwe which they formed and the objective being to change the Government in Zimbabwe. Come on, haven’t the people of Zimbabwe got the right to choose their own leaders? Must Britain continue to do that? No, no. We say no to that and so our people are very clear on that matter."

Mugabe told Kenyan journalist late last year that he would be retiring at the end of his term. His Zanu PF party has just claimed a hotly-disputed victory in parliamentary elections, winning 78 of the 120 contested seats in Zimbabwe's parliament. Mugabe appoints 30 non-constituency MPs which guarantees his party a two-thirds majority.

The huge majority allows Mugabe to ammend the constitution, and political commentators say he might alter the constitution to decree that presidential elections should run concurrently with parliamentary elections, a development which will put off the 2008 elections by two years. National Security Minister Didymus Mutasa rejected this analysis in an interview this week.
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