Mugabe represents everything virtuous to the downtrodden – wife

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe who turned 93 this week is hated by the West because he represents everything virtuous to the downtrodden people in the world, his wife, Grace, said yesterday.

Speaking at his belated birthday party in Matebeleland South at a school named after Zimbabwe’s coloniser Cecil John Rhodes, Grace said this is why the West was fighting to make sure that Mugabe’s policies on land and empowerment did not succeed.

“Our erstwhile colonisers are fighting tooth and nail, to make sure that these policies do not succeed. If they do, the President would naturally be vindicated and the ripple effects will be catastrophic to the cannibal interests of the Western world in Africa,” she said.

Mugabe and his wife are both on the European Union and United States sanctions.

The EU extended its sanctions on the couple on the eve of Mugabe’s 93^rd birthday.

The First Lady who said her husband was maturing with age said Mugabe was a moving encyclopaedia and the youths should tap from his wisdom and principled stand.

“The principles he stood for yesterday, remain true today and long into the future.  True to his principled leadership he has on numerous occasions given us free advice when he said. ‘You don’t sacrifice principle on the altar of expediency. You cannot be a revolutionary cadre yesterday only to sell out your birthright today. That’s called betrayal of your principle, and betrayal of your country. A person who prevaricates is never fit to be a leader’’’.

Grace, who is 42 years younger than her husband currently the world’s oldest leader, has been accused of having political ambitions but she has brushed this off.

Her public statements, especially at public rallies, however tell a different story and have often upset a lot of people.

In her latest outburst, she said Zimbabweans will vote for Mugabe even if his corpse is put on the ballot paper.

Mugabe is the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front candidate for next year’s presidential elections.

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