62 MAY 2017
settled in a small village
150km south of the capital.
The guerrilla war that would
bring her future husband to
power was already in progress,
although Grace’s family kept
their heads down and she’s said to have
been traumatised whenher school was
blown up by rebel forces.
She later took a secretarial course
in Harare and while still a teenager
married Stanley Goreraza, a trainee
Air Force officer. Aged 20, she secured
a job at State House, the headquarters
of the new majority government led
by Robert Mugabe. With Stanley and
their young son, she settled into a
small flat on the outskirts of the city.
Those who knew Grace at the time
describe her as “uncomplicated”,
“beautiful” and “a country girl,
slightly out of place”. According
to Zimbabwean journalist Edinah
Masanga, “She had a very seductive
presence, long legs, a good figure and
a slightly nasal voice that people
found attractive.” She wore her hair
in braids, dressed smartly and always
smiled – especially when the big boss
walked by.
When he first set eyes on Grace,
Robert had been married for almost
25 years to Sally Hayfron, a former
teacher and political activist who had
campaigned tirelessly for his release
from prison under the old regime.
Wildly popular with the public, Sally
had suffered ill-health for some years
and struggled with the demands of
being First Lady.Lady may have more pressing
matters to attend to.
The first hint of her political
ambitions came two years ago,
when she was unexpectedly
made head of the women’swing
of the ruling ZANU PF party.
From this post, she has steadily
expanded her power, appearing
at party rallies where loudspeakers
play a funky, choral version of
Amazing Graceand her standard
speech is a call for the “destruction”
of her husband’s opponents.
The first to feel her wrath was her
main female rival within the party,
Joice Mujuru, 61, the revered widow
of one of the heroes of Zimbabwe’s
liberation struggle. Grace, says Joice,
first began trying to freeze her out of
meetings, then bad-mouthed her to
senior party colleagues. Finally, in a
public tirade, the First Lady accused
her of treason, witchcraft and wearing
short skirts, which Grace claimed set a
bad example to young girls.
“I have given my life to the struggle,”
Joice said later. “And I get this.” Once
considered a potential successor to
Mugabe – she was Vice-President for
10 years until 2014 – Joice found
herself driven out of the party. No one
has dared to cross the First Lady since.
“While Grace was just the
President’s wife,” says Mary Ndoro,
a leading London-based Zimbabwean
dissident, “people mainly complained
about the money she spent. Now, she
is involving herself in politics and
when you look at the people around
her, it is extremely frightening.”
Most of these people are hardline
Mugabe cronies, complicit in the
nation’s ruin, who fear for their
own future if a more enlightened
government takes over. Some Western
observers suspect their aim is to
manipulate Grace Mugabe into office
in the hope of maintaining the status
quo. Others believe her hope is to save
her own skin.
While the official line is that
President Mugabe intends to stand
for yet another five-year term in
next year’s election, almost no one
believes he is up to it. At a recent party
congress, he dozed through most of
the speeches, waking up only to nibble
distractedly from a silver salver of
potato chips. Frail and obviously
confused, he appearedheavily
dependent on his wife, who had tostep
in with a spade when he was unable to
plant a ceremonial sapling.
When, eventually, she ushered him
offstage, returning alone to loud
applause, the symbolism could scarcely
havebeen more obvious. Just in case
anyone missed it, she told a rally later,
“They say I want to be President.
Why not?”
Grace was born in a suburb of
Johannesburg, South Africa’s biggest
city, where her labourer father had
gone looking for work. When she was
five, the family returned to Zimbabwe- then white-ruled Rhodesia – and
CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: Grace and
Robert at their wedding in 1996; the
couple with the Queen in London
in 2005; Robert and first wife Sally;
Grace at a political rally this year.PHOTOGRAPHY BY GETTY IMAGES, PICTURE MEDIA, AAP AND REX FEATURES.