Mugabe Prepares to Take Over Mines, Isolation Deepens

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Source: Bloomerg

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is preparing to take over key businesses in mining, banking and manufacturing as his international isolation deepens, two members of the ruling party’s politburo said.

The 84-year-old leader said two days ago that he may form an “Economic Revolutionary Council” to overcome sanctions, the officials said. They declined to be identified because the talks of his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party two days ago weren’t public. Meantime, a South Africa opposition party called for African nations to join the sanctions.

Mugabe’s plans suggest he doesn’t intend to bow to calls to step down as the economy collapses and cholera spreads. The top U.S. envoy to Africa, Jendayi Frazer, said Dec. 21 that Mugabe has “lost it.” Zimbabwe is in its 10th year of recession, with an annual inflation rate of more 230 million percent and an unemployment rate more than 80 percent.

“We are seeing the endgame,” Marian Tupy, an Africa analyst at the Washington-based Cato Institute, said yesterday. “It’s an indication of how short of money Mugabe is.”

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