Ailing Mugabe returns home Wednesday

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Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980

THE Ailing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is expected back in Zimbabwe on Wednesday after undergoing intensive treatment in Singapore.

The embattled 88 year old left on what was described as a "private visit" to Singapore on March 31.

Aides said Mugabe would use the trip to oversee arrangements for his daughter, Bona, to begin post-graduate study, after she received her accounting degree from a Hong Kong university last year.

Officials in Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC party have publicly suggested Mugabe's absence was paralysing government, with last week's Cabinet meeting cancelled.

On Monday, Misheck Sibanda, the chief secretary to the Cabinet, announced that Tuesday's Cabinet meeting had been moved to Thursday when Mugabe would be back in Harare.

He denied the President had a health emergency, suggesting instead that the Zanu PF leader was enjoying an Easter break with his family in Asia.

He said: "The President is on his Easter holidays, like everyone else.

"He returns to his post this week, at the same time as those who are asking about his whereabouts from their holiday hideouts."

His spokesman described the trips as necessitated by cataract surgery, or simply private visits, amid repeated media reports that he was suffering from cancer.

His health has been the subject of much speculation, especially since WikiLeaks last year released a 2008 US diplomatic cable saying central bank chief Gideon Gono had told then-US ambassador James McGee that Mugabe had prostate cancer and had been advised by doctors he had less than five years to live.

But the Zanu PF leader, who has already been named as his party's candidate for the next elections, has shot down rumours that he is sick.