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Title: She boasts of supernatural powers and plunders Zimbabwe's diamonds to buy designer shoes. Now a nervous nation asks: Is 'Gucci' Grace Mugabe about to be the world's first female dictator?
Source: Daily Mail
URL Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... e-world-s-female-dictator.html
Published: Nov 19, 2014
Author: By Ian Birrell for The Mail on Sunday
Post Date: 2014-11-19 14:58:47 by X-15
Keywords: Michelle
Views: 95

Grace Mugabe has been called many things since the moment when, barely out of her teens, she caught the eye of the president of Zimbabwe as she tapped away in his typing pool.

Now his wife, she styles herself ‘Amai’ (mother) for her supporters but, behind her back, is derided as Gucci Grace and The First Shopper, a reflection of her extravagant spending in designer shops around the world despite the struggles of her country.

Others simply call her Dis Grace, especially those who believe she forced her 90-year-old husband Robert to remain in power so she could plunder Zimbabwe’s diamond wealth to fund her overseas shopping trips. But now a nervous nation fears she could soon have a new title: President.

For this reviled woman has stepped, in her costly Ferragamo shoes, into the political arena, exploding a titanic power struggle to succeed the increasingly doddery despot who has ruled Zimbabwe so disastrously for more than three decades.

Many Zimbabweans believe she wants the top job, which would make her the first female dictator in modern history.

The 49-year-old has stoked such fears by touring the country by helicopter, holding mass rallies and pouring scorn on her rivals. ‘The time has come to show people what I am made of,’ she told one crowd. ‘I had never dreamed of entering politics but you have approached me and I am ready to go.’

At another rally a few weeks later, the South African-born first lady said: ‘Some say I want to be president. Why not? Am I not Zimbabwean too?’

Most of her fellow citizens see this as a chilling prospect that threatens to plunge their beautiful but tormented country into fresh despair.

Grace Mugabe is, quite simply, loathed. ‘She is an avaricious monster with a vindictive nature, who makes Imelda Marcos look mild by comparison,’ one close observer told me.

‘Every time she speaks she creates lots of new enemies, just hitting out regardless of the consequences,’ said another well-connected figure in the capital Harare. ‘I find her very cruel and spiteful, unlike her husband.’

This is a woman who personally threw an elderly white couple off their family farm, punched a British photographer in the face after he snapped her on a shopping spree and claimed to have cursed a South African critic of her husband who committed suicide.

Diplomats believe she is stealing vast chunks of the nation’s wealth from diamond mines. She blew £3million of state funds on her daughter’s wedding earlier this year and defends wearing her Italian designer shoes while people starve on the basis that she has ‘narrow feet’.

Suddenly the public buses in Harare are bearing huge images of her hated face. She has been given a doctorate in sociology after a two months of supposed study and ministers are gushing about the ‘guidance and leadership’ of a woman ‘who is a mother to us all’.

On Thursday night, she and her shadowy allies showed their strength by purging key opponents from the ruling Zanu-PF party at a marathon late-night politburo meeting.

Among them was Jabulani Sibanda, leader of the feared war veterans who oversaw the brutal campaign to seize white-owned farms. ‘He was one of the only people left in the country who could stand up to the Old Man,’ said one stunned Zimbabwean source. ‘This shows things are getting ugly.’

Sibanda had publicly refused to attend Mrs Mugabe’s rallies and said veterans would not tolerate ‘a bedroom coup’.

Also expelled were Rugare Gumbo, official party spokesman, and several provincial party chairmen, all accused of plotting to oust Mugabe. The president was reported to have angrily confronted Gumbo at the meeting after the Zanu-PF veteran told state television it was time to end the debate over succession.

And this is the question at the heart of the power struggle: who will take over from the cold, calculating man who has clung on to power in Zimbabwe since it won independence from Britain in 1980, overseeing the slaughter of rivals, the shocking collapse of the economy and the shameful theft of its mineral wealth?

‘This kind of public in-fighting inside Zanu-PF is unprecedented,’ said Piers Pigou, analyst for southern Africa at the International Crisis Group. ‘We have entered uncharted terrain.’

The country has long been transfixed by a battle between two powerful rivals who loathe each other.

On one side is sinister justice minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former spy chief nicknamed The Crocodile, who is thought to represent party hardliners and own substantial gold and diamond mining interests.

The other camp is led by Joice Mujuru, vice president since 2004 and a liberation struggle veteran who fought under the nom de guerre Teurai Ropa (‘Spill Blood’ in the native Shona language).

Her husband was a former army chief killed in a strange fire at his seized farmhouse three years ago, despite police guards. His estate was rumoured to be worth £7 billion.

Their clash boiled over three months ago when Mrs Mugabe was nominated as leader of the Zanu-PF Women’s League, a powerful politburo role.

During a ten-rally tour of the country, the first lady tore into Mujuru in the most vitriolic terms, calling her ‘corrupt’ and ‘a liar’ needing exposure. She speculated the 59-year-old might be killed, adding ‘dogs and fleas would not disturb her carcass’.

She spent hefty sums on shopping trips in London, Paris and Singapore, where she was photographed with 15 trolleys overflowing with luggage at the airport.

Zimbabwe is now waiting and watching for its first lady’s next move. ‘This is clearly a political power play motivated primarily by the Mugabes’ desire to hold on to the massive amounts of personal wealth they’ve accumulated in power,’ said Jeffrey Smith, a Washington-based analyst.

‘It is self-interested politics buttressed by a dangerously inflated ego after speaking to large and boisterous crowds during her nationwide tour.’

Grace even seems to believe she has supernatural powers now. Referring to the death of Heidi Holland, author of an acclaimed book about Mugabe, she told one rally: ‘There was a white lady who wrote a book castigating President Robert Mugabe. I held the book and prayed to God to deal with her. She committed suicide a month later.’

The big question is whether this despised woman can survive the deadly bear pit of Zanu-PF politics – or if she is she just a pawn being used by other powerful players.

‘She is portrayed as a smart businesswoman but everything she presides over is looted – although she is certainly an expert at retail therapy,’ said one authoritative source.

‘She is an under-educated woman who does not realise the fire she is playing with. She’s the sort of person who will end up hanging from a lamp-post like Mussolini’s mistress.’

Only time will tell if such gruesome fate awaits Grace Mugabe. Or whether she ends up as the modern world’s first female dictator, an alarming prospect for a land that has suffered so much and for so long under her husband.

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Poster Comment:

Parallels to Michelle Obama??(1 image)

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