Health in Doubt, Mugabe, 87, Vows to Stay in Power

[alp227]

JOHANNESBURG — Some of his fellow autocrats may be struggling — with Hosni Mubarak detained in Egypt and Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi hiding from NATO air bombardments in Libya — but Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, another of Africa’s longest-serving leaders, declared in an interview published Friday that he intended to run for president this year at the age of 87, and live to be 100.

“The doctors say that I am O.K., and some are surprised by my bone structure,” Mr. Mugabe told an editor from the state-controlled news media. “They say they are the bones of someone who is 40. I suppose it’s the exercise. I also take calcium every day.”

Mr. Mugabe’s pronouncements about his good health and plans to stay in power beyond the three decades he has already governed Zimbabwe come at a time of rising concern within his own party, ZANU-PF, and among senior governing party officials in neighboring South Africa about what would happen if he died in office.

His repeated trips to Singapore for medical care this year have led to feverish speculation about his health. He has admitted only to having cataract surgery there. In the interview printed Friday in the media he controls, he was not asked about the now common rumor that he has prostate cancer.

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/21/world/africa/21zimbabwe.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[izquierdista]

1. He's just jealous

That Kim Il Sung is still President of North Korea even though he's been dead for 17 years.