For years, it was the biggest bash of the Zimbabwe calendar: a cow-slaughtering, goat-roasting, champagne-guzzling feast to celebrate the birthday of the big man himself, President Robert Mugabe.
But this year, even on his 85th birthday, the annual extravaganza will be a lot less lavish than usual. The donors are mutinying, the organizers are pleading for help, the economy has collapsed, and Mr. Mugabe has seen his power slipping away to a new government. The autocrat's feast is in trouble.
“I will not be giving them a cent,” says Bernard Saurombe, a 43-year-old teacher, one of the thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans who were compelled to donate money to the birthday party in previous years.
“The government used to force us to donate our money for the birthday, but now things have changed. Why should I celebrate the birthday of a man who has caused us this misery? We are suffering because of this man and there is no way I can spend a single cent on celebrating his birthday. Besides, my new salary of $100 (U.S.) does not allow such useless spending.”
Tafadzwa Chipunze, a 23-year-old market trader from one of Harare's poorest suburbs, says he was weary of giving money every year to gangs of youths from the ruling political party who would threaten to take away his market license if he refused to donate to the birthday bash.
“Now I feel that I cannot be bullied into donating money,” he said. “I've come to realize that we're now under a new government. There's no need to pretend that I like Mugabe. They tried to force us again this year, but people flatly refused. They said they've got nothing to spare because they're already impoverished by Mugabe's policies.”
Mr. Mugabe is still the most powerful man in Zimbabwe, the country he has dominated since 1980, but he has been obliged to share power with a new government that includes a prime minister and cabinet ministers from the opposition.
His supporters were aiming to raise $300,000 (U.S.) to celebrate his birthday at a huge party in his hometown of Chinhoyi tomorrow, a week after he officially turned 85. But donors have been so reluctant that the festivities have been scaled back.
Organizers are still planning to bring thousands of children to the party in buses, and dozens of cows will still be slaughtered to feed the birthday crowd – an almost obscene contrast to the widespread hunger in Zimbabwe, where seven million people are dependent on food aid from the United Nations and other foreign agencies.
But the coerced donors of the past – the civil servants, teachers and state employees who needed to donate money to the birthday bash to show their loyalty and save their jobs – have less reason to give. Many of them work for ministries that are now headed by the opposition. Others simply have no money to donate because of the collapsed economy.
“The fundraising committee is still running around looking for donors who can bankroll the event,” said a report in The Standard, a Zimbabwe newspaper.
It said there is a “huge shortfall” because the traditional donors have “little enthusiasm” for the birthday party. “We are operating on a shoestring budget,” said a senior member of Mr. Mugabe's political party, Absalom Sikhosana, in an interview with The Standard.
Many government departments are still buying huge advertisements in the state newspaper, The Herald, to show loyalty to Mr. Mugabe. “Like a mighty crocodile, you have remained resilient, focused and resolute against all the odds,” said a fawning advertisement paid for by the Defence Ministry.
But this year the Herald only had four pages of birthday congratulations for Mr. Mugabe, compared to 16 pages last year and 24 pages in 2007.
Norbert Bakachesa, a war veteran who got farmland from Mr. Mugabe's land reform program, said he agreed to donate a cow to the birthday organizers last year because he was afraid he would lose his farm if he refused. “It was as if I was paying homage to a king through tribute,” he said.
“This year I told them that I had nothing. I told them that I was tired of being swindled. They tried to threaten me, but I told them that they were not going to get anything from me. I told them that I had many relatives and workers who were starving and needed food. They grumbled but they went away.”
While the lavish feast is prepared for tomorrow's party, millions of Zimbabweans remain at risk of hunger or death from poverty and disease.
A cholera epidemic has sickened more than 83,000 people and killed 3,877 in Zimbabwe so far, according to the latest figures from the United Nations. The mortality rate is three times higher than in typical epidemics, a UN official said at a press conference in Johannesburg yesterday.
Unless there is urgent assistance, Zimbabwe could continue to need food aid for up to seven million of its 13 million people next year, the UN warned.
“It's obvious that the humanitarian needs in the country remain grave,” said Catherine Bragg, a Canadian aid expert who headed a UN mission to Zimbabwe this week.
“A growing number of households are reducing their meals. Their coping mechanisms are being stretched.”
