Elephant meat on the menu at Robert Mugabe's extravagant 91st birthday party

Zimbabwe's president Robert Mugabe's birthday menu for 20,000 guests includes elephant and impala dishes.

A young bull elephant was shot on Thursday and is being prepared by chefs, according to the LA Times.

A game farmer, Tendai Musasa, offered a lion and crocodile to be stuffed as trophies, as well as a herd of impala. Other donations came from two members of the Zimbabwe government who contributed 40 cows for the feast which takes place at Victoria Falls on Saturday evening.

Seven enormous cakes were on display, including a giant 91-kilo creation showing the spectacular Victoria Falls, which empty into the Zambezi river that forms the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

The million-dollar birthday celebrations were called "obscene" by those in opposition to Mugabe, in a country ravaged by poverty, AFP reports.

Thousands of supporters of the ruling Zanu-PF party arrived at the festivities, singing and dancing as Mugabe arrived for a party at a luxury hotel in the Victoria Falls resort.

One of the banners welcoming him to the party praised him as "the icon of Zimbabwe's revolution".

Assisted by his wife Grace, the elderly leader, who wore a black suit, white shirt and red tie, threw 91 balloons into the air.

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

"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 Matabeleland North province," said opposition Movement for Democratic Change spokesman Obert Gutu.

The country's public enterprises, including electricity and transport providers, were expected to contribute to the event and a teaching union official Raymond Majongwe, told local media the country's schoolteachers were forced to donate $1 to $10 each.

Mugabe is now Africa's oldest head of state and became Zimbabwe's first prime minister after independence from Britain in 1980.