Zanu PF youth league secretary Kudzai Chipanga accused some unnamed ministers of wasting the country’s resources by holding unnecessary conferences in luxurious hotels and buying expensive vehicles at the expense of service delivery.
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Mugabe’s supporters call him an African icon who stands up to the West, but his critics say he has ruined a once promising nation with controversial policies such as the seizure of land from white farmers, which hit commercial agriculture.
“It’s all systems go now because we have done what was supposed to be the hard part that is mobilisation but we surprised even ourselves in that regard as we expect more than one million people after some provinces surpassed what we had envisaged. He gave us land and now we are supporting his indigenisation programme”, Muzarabani said.
Speakers said 92-year-old Mugabe should rule until he dies.
He said they sang pro-Mugabe songs as they spilled out of buses in downtown Harare.
“He is irreplaceable”, Grace Mugabe said before the president took to the podium, where he accused some party officials of leaking information that slandered his wife and criticized people who say he should quit.
The marchers, many of them young, carried placards with messages such as “Youths march in solidarity with the visionary and iconic leadership of President Robert Mugabe”, while others chanted “Forward with President Mugabe”.
Last month, a few thousand supporters of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party attended the biggest public protest in almost a decade calling on Mugabe to step down.
His decades in office have been widely criticised for economic decline, repression of dissent, vote-rigging and mass unemployment and emigration.
Despite signs of ageing, Mugabe appears regularly in public walking unaided and on Wednesday he delivered a trademark fiery speech. Mugabe described party leaders angling to succeed him as “treasonous”. I am not a Briton.
“The majority of Zimbabweans are living in grinding poverty and are not happy”.
“I am at the service of the people”.
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“But at the moment where do you want me to go?”
