This day, which is also former president Robert Mugabe’s birthday, was normally filled with lavish celebrations.
New President Emmerson Mnangagwa however scrapped the former leader’s celebrations and replaced it with RGM National Youth Day.
Zimbabweans marked Mugabe’s 94th birthday with an official day off, but without the extravagant cakes and fawning tributes that defined February 21 for much of his 37-year rule. Even the clean-up campaigns organised by ZANU-PF youths to mark their former leader’s birthday did not take place.
Other than a solitary editorial proclaiming the former head of state’s big day in the government-run Herald newspaper, there was little in the way of official fanfare.
None of the ministries and agencies that previously clamoured to mark the day even acknowledged it this year, and the flurry of tributes that filled newspaper pull-outs each year was also absent.
While government offices and schools were closed for the first annual “Robert Mugabe National Youth Day” — declared a week after his forced resignation on November 21 — much of civilian life continued as normal.
Mugabe has not made any public appearances following his abrupt ousting but a close ally told the AFP the nonagenarian was in good health.
“He is well and resting and ready to celebrate his birthday,” said former central bank chief Gideon Gono.
“He is going about his business and going to his farm, contrary to what was being said.”
Lavish celebrations
Among the excesses of Mugabe’s previous celebrations were vast birthday cakes — even as food shortages affected millions of Zimbabweans.
The biggest cake each year was said to weigh the same number of kilogrammes as Mugabe’s age. It took several men to carry it into the marquee.
This week, Mugabe appeared in photographs standing with his wife Grace and the new African Union Commission chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat in Harare.
The photographs were the first of the couple since the president resigned.
In a briefing to reporters Mahamat said Mugabe told him he stepped down “for peace and development of the country.”
