Robert Mugabe, the President of Zimbabwe, on Saturday told his supporters that he is neither dying nor stepping down.
The 93-year-old told Zimbabweans that there is no one with his political stature who can immediately take over from him.
He has been in charge in the former British colony since independence in 1980 and his health is closely watched by citizens who fear the country might face chaos if Mugabe dies without selecting a successor.
“There is the issue that the president is going. I am not going,” Mugabe told supporters on the grounds of a local university, 100 km west of the capital Harare,” Mugabe said as he addressed the crowd.
“The president is dying. I am not dying. I will have an ailment here and there but bodywise, all my internal organs … very firm, very strong.”
The Zimbabwean leader told tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in the town of Chinhoyi – in his home province – that if he had an ailment he would “go to the doctors like anyone else”, but said his heart and liver were “very firm, very strong”.
Mugabe said although some party officials wanted to succeed him, he saw no one among his subordinates with his political clout to keep the party united and fend off a challenge from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
“A new man will not have the same stature and the same acceptance as I have managed to secure for the party over the years,” said Mugabe.
He has traveled to Singapore three times this year for what officials say is routine medical treatment.
With Reuters report