Mugabe to address the nation next week

President Robert Mugabe, who is under pressure from civic groups and the opposition to step down, will address the nation on Thursday next week.

Speaker of Parliament Jacob Mudenda told the House yesterday that there will be a joint sitting of the National Assembly and the Senate for Mugabe’s address.

Musikavanhu Member of Parliament Prosper Mutseyami quipped in Ndau “munazocheka speech yavo” in apparent to last year’s gaffe when Mugabe read the wrong speech.

Mugabe, who turns 93 in under three months, has been under pressure to step down because of the ailing economy and the succession battle within his party which some are saying is distracting people from transforming the economy as the contesting parties size each other up.

The major succession battle is between Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and a group of young Turks called G40 which is allegedly sponsoring the First Lady Grace Mugabe.

Grace has repeatedly said she has no presidential ambitions but her actions say something else.

The Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front is holding its annual conference in just over two weeks. Though this is not an elective conference, party provinces have already endorsed Mugabe as their candidate for the next elections in 2018.

Mashonaland Central has, however, said Mugabe should not be allowed to appoint his deputies. The move has been supported by politburo member Jonathan Moyo who allegedly belongs to G40.

Moyo says granting Mugabe those powers in 2014 was a mistake and “a ruler that’s not flexible to bend will break”.

He advocates a female vice-president and elected deputies.

Mugabe has hinted the war veterans that he will step down if asked to? But with everyone, including Mnangagwa, pretending they are not interested in taking over, who is going to ask him to step down.

Perhaps the war veterans, who seem to have mended their relations with Mugabe, will tell him to so that he can step down in dignity and preserve his legacy.

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