HARARE (Reuters) – Ninety-year-old Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe promoted his wife to the top ranks of his ZANU-PF party on Saturday but delayed filling vacant senior posts, prolonging anxiety over his lack of successor.
Africa’s oldest head of state and the only leader Zimbabwe has known since independence from Britain in 1980 was elected unopposed at the five-yearly ZANU-PF meeting, putting him on track to contest the 2018 presidential elections, when he will be 94.
After this week’s sacking of vice-president Joice Mujuru, who only three months ago was favourite to succeed him, Mugabe said he needed more time to vet candidates for the Politburo, the party’s top decision-making body, and the two deputy posts.
“I don’t want to rush it, so be patient. By mid next week, by Wednesday or Thursday, we will make an announcement,” he told some 12,000 party members crammed into a vast marquee erected on a dusty parade ground in central Harare.
His wife, Grace, has acceded to the top of the powerful Women’s League, capping a meteoric three-month political rise based in part on her vitriolic public attacks on Mujuru.
At the start of the three day congress, Mugabe accused Mujuru of leading a ‘treacherous cabal’ trying to end his 34-year grip on power, effectively crushing any immediate political ambitions she may have harboured.
Mujuru did not attend any part of the congress, choosing instead to watch proceedings on television at her Harare home, according to a source close to her.
