For more than a decade Grace Mugabe has taken a back seat, seemingly content with just being Zimbabwe’s first lady — though she has become famous for her shopping sprees. Trips to Paris and London have stopped since the European Union imposed a travel ban on her husband and his top lieutenants, but the Far East has proved an alternative destination.
Perhaps Grace Mugabe’s willingness to stay out of politics was an acknowledgement that she was a but a pale shadow of Mugabe’s first wife, Sally, who died in 1992, four years before Grace moved into State House. Sally Mugabe was a vibrant speaker and politician who led the Zanu-PF women’s league and was in the party’s politburo.
Breaking her usual silence on political matters last week, Grace made headlines when she told ZanuPF supporters in Shamva, Mashonaland Central, that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai would never set foot in State House.
Speaking in Shona, her mother tongue, Grace told the audience: ”Tsvangirai will never set foot in State House. Dad [Mugabe] will only step down to give way to someone from ZanuPF who knows how to preserve our sovereignty.”
Grace Mugabe’s remarks have sparked debate about how her husband would handle a loss in the upcoming run-off election. Comments such as these have increased fears that he will not step down even if he loses the elections.
”That was a foolish remark,” commented John Makumbe, a political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe. ”But she was only spilling the beans. She was betraying the internal politics within ZanuPF that Mugabe will not leave office even if he loses to Tsvangirai.”
Makumbe, a strong critic of Robert Mugabe, said Grace’s remarks nullified the whole purpose of having an election.
”She should steer clear of politics for her own sake,” he said, ”because she is not the president and she is not a party to the elections.”
A veteran journalist who preferred to remain anonymous did not agree that Grace was misbehaving. ”It was only a natural reaction,” the journalist said. ”She had to stand by her man because this was not just a national crisis but a family crisis as well. Even I would be extremely angry if my wife did not back me up when I was facing a crisis.
”Besides, why are people making a big issue out of her remarks? It happens everywhere. It is as if everyone else is entitled to an opinion but not the first lady.”
Some have wondered whether Grace is planning to enter politics or even eyeing the top job: after all, now in her early forties, she has youth on her side.
So far, no one knows the answer. Previous reports have said that Grace was responsible for pressing Mugabe to stay in power because she wanted to enjoy the good life at State House and her international shopping trips.
But last month a South African newspaper said Grace had unsuccessfully tried to stop her husband from running for a sixth term. The paper claimed he was pressured to stand by his army generals and party hawks.
If these reports are true, they raise the question of what has made her change her mind. The vigour of the campaign she has been running for her husband’s run-off has led some to say that if she had done the same in the first round, Robert Mugabe might have won.