Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has flown to Singapore Wednesday citing scheduled medical checkup amid two-week strike in the country by nurses at public hospitals and many major doctors demanding the pay the 2016 bonuses that was due in December.
The president celebrated his 93rd birthday very recently. He is now frail and hardly walks confidently. His speeches are now meandering and repetitive.
His spokesman George Charamba said without giving much detail about the medical review that the president will be returning back to Zimbabwe early next week.
Charamba said, “The president left this morning for Singapore for a scheduled medical review… We expect him back in the country early next week.”
President’s aides reveal an eye cataract is a common suffering these days for him, but media reports suggest he is suffering from prostate cancer.
However, the president’s office denies the theory of prostate cancer.
In one of the WikiLeaks releases in 2001 of a US diplomatic cable from 2008 it was revealed the Zimbabwean president has prostate cancer and could live no more than five years.
Zimbabwean economy graph started falling southward in 2000 and critics say the medical trip of Mugabe to Singapore testify collapse of public health system in the country.
The issue of successor has been again highly debated in the country and the ZANU-PF ruling party has been divided into two, one is supporting Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the rest are in favor of Mugabe’s wife Grace.
Mugabe is presently the oldest national leader in the world. He is in power since 1980. Recently he was on a holiday trip for several weeks in Asia as his annual vacation.
