Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe Turns 90, And Still Not Retiring After 34 Years Of Rule




Zimbabwe's longest serving president, Robert Mugabe turned 90 today and in his address to his party faithfuls, said he's not ready to vacate the president's seat yet  "When the day comes and I retire, yes, sure, the day will come, but I do not want to leave my party in tatters. I want to leave it intact".

Mugabe has said that he would leave when he is 94years old, that would be in 2018, after completing his current tenure which he was elected for last year.

Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe for 34 years now since the country gained independence. He is the longest serving President in the whole of Africa and is also the oldest president Africa has ever had.

A brief history- At the end of the war in 1979, Mugabe emerged as a hero in the minds of many Africans. He won the general elections of 1980 after calling for reconciliation between the former belligerents, including white Zimbabweans and rival political parties, and thereby became Prime Minister on Zimbabwe's independence in April 1980.

In August 2008, Robert Mugabe suffered a narrow defeat in the first round of a presidential election but he subsequently won the run-off election in a landslide after opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the race, and extended a hand to the opposition with the signing of a power-sharing deal with opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-T and MDC-M opposition party.

On 3 August 2013, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said Mugabe won his seventh term as President, defeating Tsvangirai with 61 percent of the vote

No comments:

Post a Comment