Zimbabwe’s President, Robert Mugabe, on Friday, said that his successor must be chosen democratically and that his wife would not automatically inherit the role.
The comments from Africa’s oldest leader, now aged 92, was a warning to feuding members of his ZANU-PF party that he was still in charge after 36 years in power.
He asked that “why talking about successor, I am still there.
“Why do you want a successor, I did not say I was a candidate to retire, leaders were elected and not appointed.
“In a democratic party, you don’t want leaders appointed that way to lead the party, they have to be appointed properly by the people at a gathering of the people at a congress.’’
Mugabe said he was not behind his wife’s quick rise within the ZANU-PF, which led to reports that she planned to succeed her husband.
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He said “others say the president wants to leave the throne for his wife. Where have you ever seen that? even in our own culture, where have you seen a wife inheriting power from her husband?.’’
The former liberation fighter was chosen in 2014 to lead his party for another five years, automatically becoming the ZANU-PF presidential candidate for Zimbabwe’s 2018 presidential election.
He will be 99 if he wins and completes that term, his last under a new constitution.
He had earlier told ZBC TV that he wanted to live to 100, that he was fit and still did daily morning exercises
