Mugabe describes health problems as 'naked lies'

[January 24, 2011]  HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) -- Zimbabwe's 86-year-old President Robert Mugabe denied he has been gravely ill and described reports he underwent surgery in Malaysia as "naked lies."

On his return from annual vacation, Mugabe said he had been in Singapore -- not Malaysia. He arrived home late Sunday and is scheduled to attend a summit of the continentwide African Union in Ethiopia this week.

Zimbabwe's longtime ruler is a prominent figure at summits of African leaders where he routinely takes the opportunity to denounce Western interference in the continent and Western support for his opponents at home.

The reports in the British, South African and independent Zimbabwe media said Mugabe was operated on for an inflamed prostate gland after suffering from a prostate condition for several years. They cited diplomats and other unnamed sources.

Mugabe told state radio that reports of his ill health were "naked lies crafted by the Western-manipulated media." He also told the fiercely loyal state broadcaster there were always Western-sponsored rumors he was dying when he was absent from his office.

"Those are the lies they put across from year to year. Now it's something you expect each time I go on leave and they also go on their campaigns," he was quoted as saying.

As Zimbabwe heads toward elections proposed later this year Mugabe said there were members of his party "jostling" to be his successor and over other posts. He said that was an internal party issue to be dealt with by ZANU-PF's top policy body, its 50-member politburo, state radio reported.

An apparently robust Mugabe also told the broadcaster at the main Harare airport that he had the constitutional power to call elections this year even if electoral and constitutional reforms are not complete.

He said the power-sharing coalition with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai "was not meant to be a permanent arrangement."

"I can invoke the existing constitution and call elections," he said, according to state radio.

The coalition was formed after disputed violence-plagued elections in 2008. Tsvangirai's party won the parliamentary vote but he boycotted a presidential run off poll to protest violence against his supporters by Mugabe militants and loyalists in the police and military.

Independent poll monitors and human rights groups say an all party program to rewrite the constitution last year through countrywide public meetings was also marred by violence blamed mostly on Mugabe militants who are still in place in bases across the country.

In the past, Mugabe has fended off challenges to his leadership but now is believed by many to be losing his grip on factions in his party.

Finance Minister Tendai Biti, who is also a top aide to Tsvangirai in the former opposition, told supporters at a party rally in December that Mugabe fell asleep during a two-hour meeting they had to discuss his 2011 budget proposals.

Mugabe's public speeches have become noticeably shorter and government ministers of the former opposition say the ascetic and intellectual one-time schoolteacher recently has become prone to losing his concentration at ministerial meetings.

[Associated Press; By ANGUS SHAW]

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