As Mugabe responds to reports that his wife assaulted someone, we examine the president's media tactics.
As Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has seen his popularity wane over the years, he has developed a time-worn tactic when faced with criticism in the media: dust off the anti-imperialist credentials and deflect attention onto Zimbabwe's white former colonial masters inside and outside the country.
Mugabe's response to a recent incident involving his wife, Grace, in South Africa, was a case in point. When the South African press censured Mrs Mugabe for allegedly assaulting a woman in Johannesburg, the president countered by questioning why whites still wield so much power in South Africa.
Even as a revolutionary, Robert Mugabe understood the power of the media. While in exile in neighbouring Mozambique in the 1970s, Mugabe would spend hours on the radio broadcasting speeches back into what was then called Rhodesia, calling for the end of white-m
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