Zimbabwe's President Mugabe delivers wrong speech, opposition questions his health
Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, the Africa’s oldest leader, has read out a month-old speech at the opening of the country’s parliament, an error that prompted the opposition to question his mental health.
“The mix-up happened in his secretarial office. Therefore the delivery in parliament should be set aside,” said George Charamba, the press secretary in the president's office and permanent secretary in the Ministry of Information, Reuters cited the online edition of the state-run Herald newspaper as reporting on Tuesday.
The 91-year-old Mugabe, who has been serving as the president of the southern African country since 1987, delivered the same speech he read during his state-of-the-nation address on August 25 in parliament, in which he urged China to rebuild Zimbabwe’s troubled economy.
Charamba said that the president would read the correct speech at a later date.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), critical of Mugabe’s long rule, however, seized the opportunity and called the error a “blunder”, which called into question the old president’s fitness to hold office.
“This is a historic blunder. Anyone who is still of a sound mind would have quickly picked it up that the speech was the wrong one… But it dovetails with what we in the MDC have been saying that Robert Mugabe is no longer fit for purpose. He should resign,” said MDC spokesman Obert Gutu.
Zimbabwe's parliament refrained from broadcasting the speech live after MDC members threatened to disrupt the event like his August speech, which they booed and heckled. The MDC members, however, were sitting quietly during the 25-minute speech while Mugabe’s supporters from the ruling ZANU-PF party clapped at regular intervals.
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