Elephant On Menu list at Mugabe's $1.3million Dollar Birthday celebration.

 Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has celebrated his 91st birthday with a lavish million-dollar bash that was slammed by the opposition as "obscene" in a country wracked by poverty.

Thousands of supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF, many wearing party regalia emblazoned with the president's image, sang and danced as he arrived for the jamboree at a luxury hotel in the famed Victoria Falls resort.

The elderly liberation leader threw 91 balloons into the air.

The party, which came a week after Mr Mugabe's birthday, was held on the hotel golf course, with white marquees housing the guests.

Elephants were slaughtered for the feast and seven huge cakes were on display in one of the tents.

One giant, 91-kilogram creation depicted the spectacular Victoria Falls, which empty into the Zambezi river that forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Addressing the gathering in a 90-minute speech, Mr Mugabe castigated the US which had imposed sanctions on both Zimbabwe and him personally.

"[The US] can't have it both ways. If they want to be friends then they must be friends with us in total and we allow them to have some safaris," he said.

"But they can't say 'allow our people to visit, allow our people to have safaris, to kill our lions and take safari trophies to America'."

The extravagance of Mr Mugabe's birthday parties is a subject of annual controversy in Zimbabwe.

The opposition Movement for Democratic Change called the festivities "obscene".

"All the money that has been collected to bankroll this obscene jamboree should be immediately channelled towards rehabilitating the collapsed public hospitals, clinics and rural schools in Matebeleland North province," MDC spokesman Obert Gutu said last week, referring to the province where Victoria Falls is located.

Mr Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence from Britain in 1980, is the world's oldest leader.

One of the banners welcoming him to the party praised him as "the icon of Zimbabwe's revolution".
"Forward with president Mugabe," supporters chanted.
Several speakers wished him good health, with one youth leader urging the authorities to declare February 21 - his birthday - a national holiday.

In an interview marking his birthday, Mr Mugabe admitted he blundered by giving ill-equipped black farmers vast tracts of farmland under his controversial land reforms.

"I think the farms we gave to people are too large. They can't manage them," Mr Mugabe said.

He also shrugged off questions over an incident earlier this month in which he missed a step and stumbled from a podium.

"I have yet to come across a person who has not fallen. It was a slight fall, missing a step," Mr Mugabe told state-controlled television.

Despite his age, Mr Mugabe appeared to be in reasonable health, and according to analyst and author Richard Dowden, could regard himself as having plenty to celebrate following years of international criticism.