Grace Mugabe’s blitz: 10 mad points

By Fungi Kwaramba

HARARE – Like the feared tsunami, First Lady Grace Mugabe has left a trail of destruction around the country in the past few weeks, as she has shot from the hip and spewed bile at virtually all her “Meet the People” rallies.

In these rallies, her message has been a mixture of a little good, plenty of the bad, and truckloads of the ugly.

Today, the Daily News spotlights some of Mrs Mugabe’s not so-amazing statements, that have left the ruling party seriously divided and on the brink of unprecedented anarchy and intra-party violence.

From calling the beleaguered Vice President Joice Mujuru a thief, a factionalist and a gossiper, to threatening supporters who were walking out from her Bulawayo rally, and putting the lives of journalists at stake with her crass utterances, Grace said it all.

In the final analysis, it does not take a PhD for one to conclude that Grace’s rallies have left Zanu PF in intensive care, rather than the unified movement that her supporters promised it would be.

Indeed, not once did she articulate a profitable, progressive idea or policy in this inauspicious tour, that could improve the lives of the suffering millions. It was merely hate speech after hate speech, mostly targeted at Solomon Mujuru’s widow, Joice.

A brief history of events thus far here can perhaps help put things into perspective; Grace having been nominated to take over as the Zanu PF Women’s League boss.

She has since then, gone on to host chiefs, pastors, youths and women at her Mazowe Children’s Home.

And basking in her newly-found political glory, Grace has visited every corner of the country, ostensibly to thank supporters for nominating her to be Women’s League boss.

So, here are the Daily News’s choice 10 “mad” points around the infamous “Graceland Tour”:

1 Like her husband, Grace spoke for long hours, incoherently lurching from one topic to another. This made it difficult to follow her outbursts. Her humour was dry and her acrid attacks on senior Zanu PF officials only seemed to serve to confirm the long-held view that the ruling party was hurtling towards its demise.

2 Claiming to speak in tongues and to have an ability to see heavenly visions, she told pastors at her Mazowe business hub that she was a prayerful woman who was married to a priest. And then, with neither shame nor conscience, the “pious” First Lady later told a rally in Gweru that she was ready to spill blood if she was forced out from her Iron Mask Farm that she grabbed from a poor family in Mazowe — their only sin being that they were white.

3 Grace, who says she takes care of abandoned children at her Amai Mugabe Children’s Home and proudly sees herself as the Mother of the Nation said, in thinly-veiled remarks made in Bindura and aimed at Mujuru, that it was time to “baby dump” some people in Zanu PF.

“The youths have alerted me about someone who is spearheading factionalism in this (Mashonaland Central) province and I told Baba (president Mugabe) to ‘baby-dump’ that person. I told him that if he does not dump the person, we will do it ourselves,” Grace thundered.

What ugly, un-motherly and unFirst Lady-like language!

4 She displayed an amazing lack of emotional capital in Bulawayo when she rebuked women who walked out on her, brazenly threatening them to the effect that she would withhold donated farming inputs.

“You are disorganised Bulawayo. This is disrespectful. We are about to finish. Sit down. Where are those women going? Anyone who doesn’t sit down will not receive the farming inputs I brought,” she said in annoyance.

“If you stand up while I am speaking, you are inferring that I am speaking nonsense,” said the upset Grace. But the women of Bulawayo, where Zanu PF does not have a single parliamentary seat, continued to stampede out.

5 Grace’s fixation with Mujuru eventually began to sound like a broken record. Initially, she tried to be subtle about thus, but eventually lost the plot, attacking Mujuru in an unrestrained and unedifying fashion. Mujuru was accused of being corrupt, power hungry, selfish and a champion of western interests. According to Grace, the MDC and Mavambo were formed in Mujuru’s house.

6 MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was never going to escape Grace’s acerbic tongue. While he might be struggling to keep his party afloat, his name was invoked by the First Lady at most of her so-called “Thank You” rallies.

Indeed, it seems as if Grace will not rest as long as Tsvangirai is alive. Among other unsavoury things, he was accused of being a womaniser, a Satanist and of course, an incapable leader.

But the opposition leader answered her in kind, and with some interest! He said that while Mugabe’s first wife Sally was on her deathbed, Grace, a former typist to our nonagenarian leader, was having an adulterous affair with him. Ouch!

7 As if her very life depends on being elected the Women’s League boss, Grace has spent more time on the “campaign trail” this year than her husband did in his bid for the presidency last year. The irony of it all is that she is uncontested in this relatively junior party post. So, who is she competing against?

8 From grandstanding as the de facto leader of the country by traversing the land in military helicopters — heavily guarded by law enforcement agencies and accompanied by some top Cabinet and Zanu PF officials — Grace has made strong statements such as that her husband will select members of the presidium.

She spoke as if the ruling party does not have a constitution and structures by which it makes and takes decisions. Still, Grace clearly showed the world that she is in charge and that she controls Gushungo.

9 She might be known as the shopaholic wife of Africa’s oldest president, who owns a vast business empire and lives in an opulent family mansion in one of Harare’s leafy suburbs, but Grace unashamedly told Zanu PF supporters that Mugabe is the world’s poorest president. Really?

10 And of course, she wickedly celebrated the death of author Heidi Holland. Speaking with a straight face, she said that she had prayed for something bad to happen to Holland. All this coming from a pious Catholic Family!

Holland, the hugely popular author of Dinner with Mugabe committed suicide last year.

“There is a woman who wrote a book saying Mugabe’s wife is a dreadful person. I simply took that book and prayed to God, (saying) if this is true, reprimand me, but if they are lies, deal with this person. The woman killed herself as a result,” said Grace.

And at her Marondera rally, she could have caused the deaths of the Daily News journalists covering her rally when she took time to castigate the popular newspaper and demanded that the journalists identify themselves.

What a Christian. Daily News