HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old leader might be slowing down, but his busy foreign travels have led the opposition to call him the “non-resident president.”
President Robert Mugabe has visited Singapore, Ghana, Swaziland and Mauritius in the past three weeks alone. At times he stops over in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, for just a night before leaving again.
Some critics say Mugabe’s trips are a drain on this southern African country’s depleted finances. Others are amazed at how a visibly elderly man remains fit enough to clock thousands of miles in the air.
The foreign travels of the world’s oldest head of state often provide comic relief for Zimbabweans weary of the country’s two-decade economic decline.
Images of Mugabe struggling to walk on the red carpet, toppling from a raised lectern at the airport in 2015 and, most recently, wearing a loose-hanging, untucked white shirt in Mauritius – a rare break from his usual suit and tie – have trended on social media and become the butt of jokes and memes.