AP

President Robert Mugabe. Picture: AP/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe turned 88 on Tuesday, still determined to cling to power and defying anyone to stop him.

Including President Jacob Zuma. In a pre-birthday interview with the pro-Zanu PF Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Monday night, Mugabe said he reserved the right to ignore Zuma’s mediation efforts in Zimbabwe because, he implied, he was biased against Zanu PF.

He compared Zuma with ex-Botswna President Ketumile Masire, who was chosen by SADC to mediate in a dispute about the electoral system in Lesotho but was later “rejected” by that nation for alleged bias toward the opposition there, Mugabe said.

He stressed that Zuma had been chosen as an individual and his facilitatory role had nothing to do with South Africa.

"Facilitators do not carry the name of their home country to the countries they would be facilitating," he said.

"So we can refuse to work with Zuma openly. We have already told him that, but we don't want to do that because we want to maintain good relations," Mugabe added.

He took a swipe at Zuma’s chief negotiator, Lindiwe Zulu, saying she “ thinks it's South Africa, it's not South Africa but President Zuma and Zuma alone."

On Sunday Mugabe also obliquely challenged Zuma when he was quoted in the pro Zanu PF Sunday Mail as saying that elections would be held this year as he was not a “coward.”

He said money would be found for the poll - even though he himself has signed off the 2012 budget which made no provision for elections which are more likely to be held next year.

Mugabe had previously pledged elections would be held last year but his plans were thwarted largely by Zuma’s mediation team which insisted that the political playing field would have to be levelled before Zimbabweans went to the polls .

Mugabe also told the Sunday Mail he has no successor. “All the people support that I stand. There is no one who can stand and win (in Zanu PF) at the moment. You have got to groom a candidate…but not yet…that will cause much more divisions within the party.”

Meanwhile Zanu PF officials are still scuttling around trying to raise money for Mugabe's birthday lunch which will be held in the eastern town of Mutare.

Plans for a lavish party seem to be in trouble as the business people Zanu PF normally tap say they have nothing left to offer in a disastrous economy.

So the lunch is likely to be a more modest affair, a menu of chicken stew and pap - but also the obligatory giant cake - at a shabby soccer stadium.

“Zanu PF is begging us for money but we haven’t got any as every factory in Mutare is either closed or for sale,” said a former industrialist.

“Maybe we will go to the party and try to get a free meal and watch the soccer afterwards.”