Harare - Zimbabwe’s apparently fit first lady, Grace Mugabe, says she is working closely with the country’s two vice-presidents, developing policies and charting the way forward.
As President Robert Mugabe’s health and memory declines, the first lady says she is working closely with Emmerson Mnangagwa and Phelekezela Mphoko, appointed by her husband at the Zanu-PF congress in December.
Robert Mugabe, now 91, still claims he is fit enough to continue to govern and has not ruled out standing for re-election in 2018.
Some media speculated recently that Grace was ill.
She was seldom at her husband’s side this year, but looked fit during Mugabe’s state visit to South Africa two months ago. She claims she is fit.
Some analysts believe the 50-year-old first lady is putting in a bid for power ahead of the day when her husband is forced to step aside or retire, while others say she is making sure that she is indispensable as her husband continues to fade away.
Addressing thousands of people at a proposed new housing scheme in Kadoma, 100km west of Harare, this week, glamorous Grace Mugabe said: “In the few months they have been in power I have lost count of the times that I have sat down with them one-on-one to talk about the development of Zimbabwe.
“This is the leadership that we want, servant leaders who know that they are there to work for the people and that they should sit down with the mother (first lady) to discuss issues.”
She told the ululating crowd that former vice-president, Joice Mujuru did not consult her during her 10 years in the post.
Grace played a pivotal role in Mujuru’s ouster and later expulsion from Zanu-PF.
The former vice-president, who joined the liberation struggle in Zambia as a teenager, was accused of plotting a coup, charges she denied.
Mujuru had massive support in all provinces before her ouster.
“They (vice-presidents) know they must sit down with Amai (mother) to discuss developmental issue(s),” Grace said.
“Mnangagwa comes with a notebook, Mphoko comes with a notebook to listen to me.
“They know I am younger than them, but they appreciate I am Amai and I have something to tell them about developing the nation.
“They will be taking down notes as I speak. They will be jotting down notes as I speak so that the nation moves forward.
“I would like to tell them that I want that relationship to continue because that is the only way Zimbabwe can develop and become successful,” she told the crowd.
Grace also said Zimbabwe’s top prosecutor, Johannes Tomana, should be sacked because he said in a recent interview that in some circumstances marriage for girls under 12 was acceptable.
He claims his words in a recent interview were misrepresented by the media.
Grace began an affair with Mugabe when she was a typist at State House and delivered their first child, a daughter, when his wife, Sally, was still alive.
She manoeuvred herself into a job on the Zanu-PF politburo last year and played a leading role at the party’s December congress.
Ibbo Mandaza, a former senior Zanu-PF official and political analyst reacted to Grace’s statements on her relationship with the vice-presidents. “She has staked her claim,” he said.
But he warned there was instability within the Zanu-PF with ongoing tussles for power between those who supported Mujuru and those who support the vice-presidents and the Mugabe’s faction.
A senior diplomat in Harare said last week that he was surprised at the recent decline in Mugabe’s attention span.
“I have watched this closely and he is deteriorating, mentally.”
Others say the travel demands on Mugabe, since he inherited honorary positions as leader of the AU and the regional Southern African Development Community, undermined his fragile health.
“He can’t stay awake these days. He often nodded off in cabinet in the last few years but now it is very difficult for him to stay awake for long,” said another diplomat who engaged with Mugabe earlier this year.
Veteran political commentator and academic, Brian Raftopoulos, said he did not know whether Grace Mugabe was pushing for the top job. However, he said she was “certainly more influential” now, and that there was “no policy consistency” from the government at present.
“She is now very important and state power is also about jobs, as the private sector means very little.
“So people will cling to government jobs as it is the only means of accumulation.”
He said Zimbabwe was a “state without funds, desperately seeking some (Western) engagement.
“It faces a massive informal sector which has no options, and it is very much larger and more angry then a few years ago.”
Independent Foreign Service