Police in Zimbabwe imposed a three-month ban on political rallies and demonstrations across large parts of Harare today as Robert Mugabe, the world's oldest head of state, celebrated his 83rd birthday.

The blanket ban, announced in state-controlled newspapers, came as supporters of the hardline President prepared a lavish cake-and-fizzy-drinks birthday party in the central city of Gweru, to be held on Saturday to mark. The ban follows weekend clashes in the capital between police and activists from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) which culminated in riots squads firing tear gas and water cannon to stop an opposition rally.

Authorities claimed that the rally caused “pandemonium, looting and the destruction of property”. The MDC, in reply, described the ban as a “state of emergency” that showed the growing sense panic within the Mugabe regime.

The move came as Mr Mugabe warned critics that he would not yield to pressure to stand down.

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Speaking in an interview to mark his birthday, Mr Mugabe was as defiant as ever, saying he was still the man in power and would remain so for the time being. “There are no vacancies because I am still there. Can you see any vacancies? The door is closed.”

In an apparent warning to ambitious members of his party, he added that he was aware that some officials were jostling among themselves for his job, while others wanted him to step down before the end of his term next year.

“Every individual in the upper echelons is now looking at himself, positioning themselves,” Mr Mugabe said. “And those who think they are most immediate are resorting to all kinds of nonsense. On succession, yes they should go and talk about it, why not? But you do not talk about it in order to push President Mugabe out just now."

The President has previously said that he would step down at the end of his current term in 2008 but in December last year his ruling Zanu (PF) party passed a resolution - still to be approved by the central committee - to extend his rule by another two years in order to have concurrent presidential and parliamentary polls. Mr Mugabe refused last night to say when he would retire, but denied that he was trying to cling to power.

Africa’s oldest leader fit, active and alert, according to senior sources in his party. But he has come under pressure as never before, largely due to his appalling handling of the economy.

The party has been deducting money from civil servants’ wages and bullying near-bankrupt businesses for donations to raise the 300 million Zimbabwean dollars (about £30,000 at real exchange rates) to pay for the celebration on Saturday. In attendance will be the 21st of February Movement, an organisation of children established with the sole purpose of gathering on this day each year to pay homage.

Together with hundreds of Mr Mugabe’s rich and powerful cronies, they are expected to hear a long address from the Most Consistent and Authentic Revolutionary Leader — his official title. The cost of the party would supply 300 Aids sufferers with antiretroviral drugs for a year in a country where only 50,000 people out of 500,000 infected have access to them.

“If they said, ‘Come and join us’, and sent a car here to fetch me, I would never go,” Abigail Zvikomo, who sells vegetables on the streets of Harare, said. “Even though I am starving, I would not go. I hate him.”

The price of bread rose 136 per cent yesterday. Four loaves would cost a farmworker 15,000 dollars, a month’s wages. On Friday the Government doubled the price of maize-meal, the national staple, to the point where it will take a farmworker two months to pay for a 50kg (130lb) bag, enough for a family of six for a month.

With inflation at 1,600 per cent, the country is seething with discontent. The 450-odd junior doctors who run the hospitals are in their eighth week of a strike. So are about a quarter of the 100,000 teachers. The civil service is mooting similar action.

And, while the President’s guests party, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions will review his failure to bring workers’ salaries into line with the cost of living and decide whether to strike.

“We send him regular reports on the situation,” said a provincial head of the Central Intelligence Organisation, Mr Mugabe’s secret police. “We tell him the truth, that the population is fed up with the economic situation and that it is building up to an explosion.”

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