Mugabe fires back at Malema over ‘Grandpa’ comments

Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has responded to remarks made by EFF leader Julius Malema against him in January this year.

The EFF leader called on the Zimbabwean president to step down and allow other young leaders to lead the poverty stricken country. Malema said the 92-year-old president (who’ll soon be 93) can’t even hold a spade. He called “comrades in the Zanu-PF” cowards for failing to remove Mugabe, who has been in power since 1987.

“Zimbabwe’s situation is bad. President Mugabe can’t even control a spade. That’s how old he is. He’s no longer capable of discharging his responsibilities. We don’t hate the man. They can respond and insult us.

“They are a group of cowards, those comrades in Zanu-PF. To be scared to say to an old man like President Mugabe, ‘Please, with due respect, let go!’

“President Mugabe must let go! The legacy of the land question … we will carry it. We are following in his footsteps. We are proud of the actions he has taken. But his overstay is not doing justice on the African revolution project. He is destroying his own legacy. It’s bad.”

Mugabe, who has indicated that he intends to stand for re-election in 2018, says Zimbabweans still want him to run for elections, and he will do so until his party decides otherwise.

“Do you listen to anything from Malema? Who is Malema? The call to step down must come from my party; my party at congress; my party at central committee. [In such circumstances] I will step down,” the Zimbabwean president said during an interview with The Sunday News.

He added that he’d resign if he felt he was no longer physically fit to do his job.

“But then what do you see? It’s the opposite. They want me to stand for elections, they want me to stand for elections everywhere in the party … Of course if I feel that I can’t do it any more, I will say so to my party so that they relieve me. But for now I think I can’t say so … The majority of the people feel that there is no replacement; [a] successor who to them is acceptable, as acceptable as I am.”