President Mugabe denies Mandela feud

President Robert Mugabe has denied there was bad blood between him and Nelson Mandela.

He described the statesman as a "great friend" and "a man of real principle".

Mugabe was among scores of world leaders who attended the memorial service for Mandela at the FNB Stadium, in Johannesburg on Tuesday. On Wednesday he went to the Union Buildings, in Pretoria, to view Mandela's body lying in state.

"I don't know about any feud‚" Mugabe said on his return to Harare.

"If anything‚ there was an alliance. We worked very well with him when he came out of prison. We gave him support.

"We established the principle of national reconciliation at independence in 1980. [South Africa] took it over and used it as a basis to create what [it now has, the] rainbow nation.

"There was no feud; where was the feud; what feud?

"From our point of view‚ we have lost a great friend‚ a revolutionary and a man of real principle. That's why we went to give him a send off so that we would be satisfied that the love we had for him‚ the historical alliance that we created in the fight against imperialism and colonialism‚ will not have been historically lost by our being absent."

Zimbabwean media reports comparing Mandela and Mugabe elicited a sharp rebuke from Jonathan Moyo‚ a senior Zanu-PF member‚ earlier this week.

Moyo said such comparisons were a "waste of time".

Mugabe‚ who turns 90 in February‚ secured a seventh term in office in July — in stark contrast to Mandela‚ who served a single term and stepped down in 1999.

The Zimbabwean leader — received with applause on Tuesday at the Mandela memorial service‚ whereas President Jacob Zuma was booed — said he hoped Mandela's legacy would continue to inspire South Africa and the rest of the continent.

"We do hope that the situation in South Africa will continue with the peace and calm that Mandela created in 1994 when he came out of prison," Mugabe said.

Mugabe will not travel to Qunu‚ in Eastern Cape‚ for the burial at the weekend because of a conflict with a Zanu-PF conference.

The conference‚ against the backdrop of renewed infighting in the competition to succeed Mugabe‚ will focus on the implementation of the party's five-year economic blueprint: the Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio-Economic Transformation.