How 'Botox Bob' Robert Mugabe defies old age

Jan Raath: Behind the story

To the naked eye, Mr Mugabe looks the very picture of health, even for a much younger man let alone someone in their ninth decade. "He is in very good shape for 85," said a Harare doctor, requesting anonymity. "I would be very happy to look like that when I'm 85."

In an interview on local television at the weekend, Mr Mugabe attributed his apparent health to a lifelong regimen of daily exercise. He said that he jogs each morning and maintains his weight between 75kg and 80kg. "This ensures my body is full of muscles, and not fat," he said.

He also works out in the gym in his new mansion in Harare's exclusive suburb of Borrowdale Brooke and has a personal trainer. He has always eaten carefully, has never smoked and admits to only "an occasional glass of sweet white wine".

The octogenarian is not without certain health complaints. "He's certainly not as healthy as he makes out he is," said the doctor.

His speech is not halting, but for several years he has been prone to long, rambling, disconnected monologues. "It's a sign of senile dementia caused by
neural decay that is normal in people of his age," said the doctor. Mr Mugabe displays a high-stepping gait, also part of the dementia syndrome, the doctor said.
In the run-up to last year's bloody presidential election, Mr Mugabe's trousers rose as he sat, to reveal abnormally bloated ankles. "Oedema," suggested the octor. "It's a sign of heart, kidney or liver dysfunction."

Most curious of all is his unwrinkled face. "You can usually tell how a person is going to look by observing their parents," he said. "Mugabe's mother reached 92 and she looked, well, like a prune. He should be looking like her at his age."

"The secret has to be Botox," he said. "It also explains why his face often changes so dramatically, from being chubby to gaunt and hollow-cheeked. It's what happens when you don't have regular treatment."

Such claims have been voiced before. A former US ambassador referred to him s "Botox Bob".