HARARE - “Do you want me to punch you to the floor to realize I am still there?”
The speaker was not a boxer trash-talking before a fight. It was Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, who is 92 and known for pugnacious comments.
This one, to an interviewer from state TV, was in response to a question about retirement plans and who would succeed him.
“Why ‘successor’ when I am still there?” Mugabe said in the interview aired Thursday night. “Why do you want a successor?”
Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since the country was formed in 1980 from the ashes of white-ruled Rhodesia, says he has no plans to hand over power and ruled out grooming his politically ambitious wife, Grace, as his chosen successor.