Grace defends her affair with Mugabe

MAZOWE – First Lady Grace Mugabe has defended her affair with President Robert Mugabe several years ago by insisting that when the President’s first wife Sally was still alive, she (Grace) was customarily married to him.

Grace, who is trying to push her way through to lead the Zanu PF Women’s League, was addressing party youths gathered at her orphanage in Mazowe to show their solidarity following her nomination to the powerful Zanu PF post.

The first lady appeared annoyed at constant media reports that she snatched Mugabe from the arms of a woman who was dying from a kidney ailment.

“It did not start today that a man marries two wives,” Grace said. “I will not feel bad about it. Let them write whatever they want.

“South African President Jacob Zuma has many wives. I admire him because he stands for what he wants,” Grace said.

Last year in March President Mugabe sought to explain the fact that he cheated on his dying wife by having an affair with his then secretary Grace Marufu. Mugabe later married his mistress in 1996, making her First Lady.

Mugabe effectively ‘snatched’ his current wife from under the nose of then Air of Zimbabwe (intelligence officer) and husband Stanley Goreraza. The affair resulted in two children, Bona, named after Mugabe’s mother, and Robert Peter Jr.

In an interview with South African journalist Dali Tambo the 90 year old Zanu PF leader claimed he revealed his affair with Grace to Sally who “accepted the new relationship” before she died of a kidney failure in 1992.

Asked about the affair with Grace, Mugabe said;

“It was not just the fact that one was attracted (to her). After Sally was gone it was necessary for me to look for someone and, even as Sally was still going through her last few days, although it might have appeared to some as cruel, I said to myself well, it’s not just myself needing children, my mother has all the time said, ah, am I going to die without seeing grandchildren?

“So I decided to make love to her. She happened to be one of the nearest and she was a divorcee herself, and so it was. We got our first child when my mother was still alive.”

Asked if he had told Sally about the affair with Grace, Mugabe said: “I did tell her and she just kept quiet and said fine but she did ask, ‘Do you still love me?’ I said yes. And she said, ‘Oh, fine’.”