President Grace Mugabe: Yes she can

By Lance Guma

This is probably the question that many Zimbabweans are asking. Can President Robert Mugabe’s wife Grace, complete the remarkable journey from a typist, to Small House (mistress), to First Lady and then become President?

In a few words the simple answer is YES……. yes she can

If she could snatch Mugabe from the arms of a woman who was dying of a kidney ailment (Sally Mugabe) what can stop her from snatching the presidency?

That former thug called Jabulani Sibanda was right, power in Zimbabwe has effectively been “sexually transmitted” and the “bedroom coup” is now a reality.

Last year Grace Mugabe handed a note to her husband at the Zanu PF congress, telling him that he had spoken for too long. That moment now stands as a symbol of her power grab.

“Mukadzi uyu arikundinyorera kuti ndataurisa. Ndozvandinoitwa kumba imi woye! Saka ndoteerera” (My wife has told me that I have spoken too much and I should stop. That’s how it is even at home, so I have to obey the instruction!).

At the time many thought Mugabe was playing to the gallery and cracking a joke but now as each day unfolds, Grace Mugabe is showing us that she is indeed calling the shots in their relationship and that for every inch she got, she definitely took a mile.

Can anyone stop her?

As long as President Mugabe is alive he already has the Zanu PF constitution on his side (can appoint a VP of his choosing who can then succeed him) and none of “Mugabe’s Wives” in Zanu PF, to quote Margaret Dongo, have the balls (pardon the pun) to challenge him as long as he is alive.

It is stating the obvious to say Grace’s power is borrowed from Mugabe.

Should anything happen to Mugabe before she takes power, she will find out just how much she is disliked in Zimbabwe. The only way she can pull it off is if she strikes a deal of sorts with the army, police and security chiefs in the country.

Grace is a divisive figure in Zanu PF and is unlikely have the influence to take charge should Mugabe die in office and chaos erupts. Joice Mujuru is a perfect example. As soon as the husband General Solomon Mujuru died in that suspicious fire in Beatrice, you always had a feeling she became vulnerable and weak. What later happened to her was inevitable.

But for now as long as the all-powerful Robert Mugabe is alive, Grace will drain as much borrowed power as she can from the 91-year-old. With Mugabe too frail to fulfill his usual duties, Grace has effectively filled the vacuum. Even the bizarre cabinet reshuffles (three and counting) seem to have been made by Grace.

The bootlicking-fest that has become of Grace Mugabe’s rallies exposes her borrowed influence. It is really embarrassing to see grown men and women fall over each to appease her. Vice President Phelekezela “Hotel” Mphoko who is meant to be senior to her in the party is even introducing her at the rallies. But it says a lot about Zimbabweans….

We have become the masters of convenience. We will do or say anything to line our pockets. There are people who privately despise Zanu PF policies but have become MP’s and government ministers in the same party. They have built mansions in plush suburbs and now drive expensive cars courtesy of being servants of convenience.

This is the general disease that afflicts many. As a people we have lost the ability to think as a collective and think in the context of “what is it that I can get out of this situation that will benefit me and my family.” Anything that disturbs this template is unwelcome.

This is why even respectable people are now running around chanting “Munhu wese kuna Amai” (Everyone to Grace Mugabe) like excitable children in pre-school. All they are doing is ingratiating themselves to the person they think will oil the wheels of corruption and looting or better still, if they have already looted, help them keep that loot.

Spare a thought for the former Labour Minister Nicholas Goche. He was sacked as a cabinet minister and suspended from Zanu PF. The humiliation nearly killed him as his health took a turn for the worse. But there he was attending Grace Mugabe’s rally in Rushinga last week and looking all humble and loyal. He is just hoping to get back on the gravy train.

Same applies to former Minister Webster Shamu and his wife. Despite the humiliation they also suffered (including being chucked out from the VIP enclosure at the Heroes Acre) they are fighting hard, by sucking up, so as to get back on the feeding trough.

Grace even cheekily reminded them again at her last rally; “If you’re not in Zanu-PF, it’s cold out there. Have you ever seen anyone who survived after leaving Zanu-PF? Once you leave Zanu-PF you’re completely finished and no one will want to be associated with you.

“If you’re clever you quickly apologise and you’ll be forgiven. Some of those punished last year are with us today. Look at the trend, everyone who has started a party goes nowhere,” the First Lady thundered.

As long as the First Lady hangs onto President Mugabe’s coattails, she is okay. Even the ambitious but unpredictable young turks in the party will play along to her game for now.

Robert and Grace Mugabe know Zanu PF is full of bootlickers who like river reeds will go with the flow of the water. Thats why even the majority of senior Zanu PF members who supported Mujuru deserted her when they realised she was losing the power struggle.

Everything that has happened so far including Vice President Emmerson Mnanagagwa’s rather lame duck approach suggest the “bedroom coup” might actually succeed.

It is not because Grace Mugabe is a smooth political operator, quite the opposite, she acts like a mental case most of the time, it simply reflects how Zanu PF have allowed Mugabe to be a god, whose will cannot be challenged. The chickens are now coming home to roost.