Impoverished Zimbabwe pays high price to say 'happy birthday Mr President'

The supermarket shelves are empty, inflation has topped 67,000 per cent and power cuts are a daily event – but Zimbabwe is about to have a party.

Robert Mugabe turns 84 tomorrow and no amount of suffering is going to stop him spending a small fortune in precious currency on a lavish celebration.

Marking the President's birth has become synonymous with extravagance in the impoverished southern African country – and the ruling party's aggressive "21st February Movement" makes sure everyone joins in.

The main event will be held in the border town of Beitbridge, while similar festivities will be held across the country. The main event on the border with South Africa is expected to attract thousands of ruling party supporters and Mugabe cronies. While the party is going on, the nightly exodus of Zimbabweans across the Limpopo River into South Africa will undoubtedly continue.

Foreign companies doing business in Zimbabwe have been lining up to donate money to fund the festivities, according to officials. They will also splash out on newspaper, radio and television advertisements wishing Mr Mugabe many happy returns.

The state-controlled Herald newspaper will carry a special supplement with congratulatory advertisements tomorrow. However, with the Zimbabwean dollar having become worthless over the years and contributions always trailing the budget required, the beleaguered Zimbabwean taxpayer has in the past few years been called upon to meet any shortfalls to Mr Mugabe's birthday celebrations.

"It is not a cause that I believe in any more but something that one has to do," said a businessman who has routinely contributed to Mr Mugabe's birthday fund and who is contributing again this year.

For his 83rd birthday last year, civil servants were forced to make donations because they "owed their jobs" to Mr Mugabe's leadership in the 1970s war of independence against white settlers. While reports of extortion have not yet surfaced this year, many people find it awkward that the depths of the economic crisis have not dissuaded him from conspicuous spending.

"I wish this was not his birth-day but his death-day," said a former teacher. "The biggest contribution that this guy could have made to this country is to have died a long time ago."

Absolom Sikhosana, the head of the violent youth wing of Mr Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party and a leader of the 21st February Movement, said the birthday was celebrated in the way it has been to provide an opportunity to learn from his "exemplary character".

Party officials have set themselves a target of raising "millions of pounds" to bankroll the event, although they could not give a specific figure. Any shortfall is drawn from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ).

Last month, reports emerged that Mr Mugabe withdrew US$100,000 (£51,000) from the RBZ at the artificially low official exchange rate to finance a lavish three-week family holiday in Malaysia and Thailand. Most Zimbabweans and businesses without close connections to the regime have to access foreign currency on the black market at a very high premium.

Zimbabwe has been gripped by foreign currency shortages since Mr Mugabe seized land from white farmers who used to grow cash crops for export.

At its peak, Zimbabwe was the second largest tobacco exporting country after Brazil. The little foreign currency that still trickles into the country from the mining sector is mostly used by the ruling party elite to finance their luxury imports at the unrealistic official exchange rate of about £1 to Z$60,000. On the black market, the rate is £1 to Z$25m.

Mr Mugabe is expected to follow the party with an easy win in next month's presidential elections. A victory could well fulfil his long-stated wish to stay in power "until I am 100 years old".

Talks mediated by the South African President, Thabo Mbeki, to ensure free elections have collapsed and diplomats admit in private that the elections will be held in the same skewed environment that has produced controversial results before.

But many Zimbabweans, who feel there will be no respite to their suffering as long as Mr Mugabe clings to power, are hoping for a miracle to happen that will see him ousted from power.

The Mugabe lifestyle

Robert Mugabe has always been clear that his mentor was the Catholic Church. He was 10 when his father abandoned the family, leaving Robert, his mother and his five siblings to the care of the Kutama mission.

The Irish Jesuit priest at the mission, Jerome O'Hea, remembered a ferociously disciplined boy of 'unusual gravitas', whose only friends were books. As the years go by without seeming to leave a mark on Mr Mugabe, many Zimbabweans have simply accepted that the octogenarian is a permanent fixture.

Renowned as an early riser with a rigid fitness regime, the President of 28 years is said to eschew alcohol and eat in moderation. Every round of rumours regarding his health is quashed with another confident public appearance and marathon speech.

Always considered relatively frugal during his years in Ghana and after his return to the then Rhodesia, it was only after the death of his first wife, Sally, and his second marriage in 1996 to Grace Marufu that he took to conspicuous consumption. The couple are still building an ever-expanding mansion in the wealthy Borrowdale suburb of Harare.

Daniel Howden