I’m looking for what President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe is smoking, for it must be pretty potent.

I mean, look, the man is 90 but doesn’t seem to relent even a bit in whatever he does. Not only has he remarried — to a woman half his biological age — but he has also kept his vice-like grip on his party, Zanu-PF, and the country. He has outfoxed and browbeaten his detractors both at home and in the West.

At home, the main opposition, Morgan Zvangirai’s MDC, was given enough rope to hang itself, and it obliged dramatically, allowing itself to implode from factionalism and lack of purpose. In the West, a few cosmetic nods in the right direction were enough to persuade erstwhile critics to ease sanctions and hand Mugabe an economic lifeline.

The sick economy is now on the mend, life has become more comfortable for Zimbabweans, and Comrade Bob looks as strong as ever, with the reins of power securely in his hands.

There is a new triumphalism in his public declarations, and his tongue-lashing of his opponents is as caustic as it has always been.

He singlehandedly proves the truth in the adage that age is but a number. Seemingly one could even reverse the laws of nature such that the older you get the nimbler you become. For instance, he has changed the rules for his party’s “elective” congress so that he and he alone can “elect” those who will serve on the party executive.

When Mugabe was 30 years younger, such tasks were for many more people, the entire congress, but with the passage of time all that has changed in favour of one man. It makes it much easier and the outcome much more certain.

Then there is the small matter of Grace Mugabe, formerly Marufu, who looks like she’s inching closer and close to the centre of power with every passing day, and now, having secured the leadership of the party’s women’s league, is almost there. You can’t blame the idle speculators who see her as positioning herself to succeed her own husband when the time comes.

Makes you want to believe that political savvy is an STS — Sexually Transmitted Status — and that spouses tend to infect one another with it. Well, it has happened in other countries — think of Argentina, where it happened twice — and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t happen in Zimbabwe.

Only the woman is just not material for leadership. She has no history in the history of the country’s struggle for liberation or in subsequent political developments there. Her only claim to fame is that she stole Comrade Bob’s heart as a typist in the presidential clerks’ pool, and with that she wants to steal a march on the various contenders for Mugabe’s throne.

Grace, who is known for her spendthrift ways, has distinguished herself in other ways, notably with the vituperative statements she has used to attack the former vice president of the country, Joyce Mujuru, who is accused of plotting to assassinate Comrade Bob and herself, “Gaddafi style,” whatever that may mean.

Mujuru is the widow of liberation hero-general Solomon Mujuru — nom de guerre, Rex Nhongo — whose death in a daytime home fire on his farm remains as mysterious as the other many deaths that have littered the long and tortuous political road that the country has travelled.

Rather than a modern state born of a modern liberation movement, Mugabe’s party and government are increasingly akin to some medieval court, complete with the political plots and sexual intrigues, sharp daggers and poisoned chalices.

Still, our comrade manages to spare the time to give academic mentorship to favourite learners. Under his tutelage, Grace Mugabe obtained a PhD in sociology after only a couple of months of study.

The university has not been able to name her supervisor, but who says she needed any other apart from her multi-degree holder husband? It’s another example of what spouses can infuse each other with.

But what Comrade Bob may not understand is that his love for Grace may augur ill for his country.

Jenerali Ulimwengu is chairman of the board of the Raia Mwema newspaper and an advocate of the High Court in Dar es Salaam. E-mail: [email protected]