Do you really require proof that Robert Mugabe is a doddering old fart who should be put out to pasture? Oh, you do, well you can add this to the long list of blunders by the 91-year-old dictator.

Now politicians do read an awful lot of prepared speeches, we will admit that, but you would think at some point during a 25-minute address you might realise what you were saying sounded rather familiar. Not Bob, who soldiered through the entire speech without realising he was delivering the exact same text that he read last month during the state of the nation address. The Mail and Guardian reports:

“There has been a mix-up of speeches resulting in a situation where … the president delivered the wrong speech,” said presidential spokesman George Charamba.

“The mix-up happened in his secretarial office,” Charamba was quoted as saying in the state-owned Herald newspaper’s online edition.

“The error is sincerely regretted and corrective measures are being considered.”

Corrective measures – are we talking the same kind of measures that saw some of his security detail get the sack when he took a tumble back in Feb? Mugabe was talking at the opening of parliament during his latest blunder, although we’re guessing mockery may have been kept to a minimum:

The opening of Parliament was also tarnished by claims by opposition legislators that they had received anonymous death threats warning them against booing Mugabe during his address.

Last month, they booed and heckled him during his state of the nation address in Parliament – which is the speech he repeated on Tuesday.

Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) chief whip Innocent Gonese said seven opposition lawmakers received SMS text messages on their mobile phones warning them not to disrupt Mugabe’s address.

“The message is coming from a number which is not reflecting but it’s titled ‘death’,” Gonese told journalists after Mugabe’s speech.

“It warns the members concerned to know that immunity ends at Parliament and once they step out of Parliament that parliamentary immunity does not operate.”

As charming as ever Bob, I’ll be hanging onto that bottle of whiskey for when that special day arrives.

[source:mg]