MAY 2017 63
That the President – particularly
one bathed in the glow of moral
righteousness – should begin an affair
with a much younger employee,
who was also married, was a severe
embarrassment to his circle. So, it was
hushed up and even now the details
of how the relationship unfolded are
unclear. “Any journalist who tried to
report on it,” says Edinah, “was
victimised, arrested and tortured.”
In a rare interview in 2013,
Grace appeared to claim Sally
had accepted the relationship,
saying, “I did feel a bit
uncomfortable... he told me they
had discussed it and she was sort
of agreeable. Of course, she knew
I was there... so I’m sure they had
come to some agreement.”
Before Sally’s death from kidney
failure in 1992, there was a darkly
comic interlude when President
Mugabe had to shuttle between
the maternity ward of Harare’s
main hospital, where Grace was
giving birth to their daughter,
Bona, and the hospice wing,
where Sally lay dying. Many of
those who once admired him
believe he lost his moral bearings
when Sally went out of his life.
With the hapless Stanley
quickly divorced and dispatched
to the Zimbabwean Consulate in
China, Grace and the President
were married in 1996.
It was easy to dismiss her –
as many did – as a trophy wife,
satisfying a powerful, older man’s
vanity. Grace contributed to this
perception by stumbling over big
words in the occasional speeches
she was required to make, while
decked in expensive jewellery and
attended by personal stylists.
Accounts of her shopping trips were
soon seeping past the government’s
censors and with them came allegations
of corrupt associations with shady
business figures and talk of lavish
properties she had acquired in Hong
Kong and London.
Yet there were few suggestions that
she had any interest in politics. A 2007
US diplomatic cable, published by
WikiLeaks, stated, “Grace has few
friends, even within the Mugabe
family... Grace’s primary personal
interest appears to be shopping: she
reportedly spends large amounts of
foreign exchange on her trips to Asia.”
It concluded, “We believe Grace has
little or no political influence over
her husband.”
Joice Mujuru believed it, too. “I hadnever thought of her as politically
minded,” she ruefully told a British
newspaper. “She was just the First
Lady. It was a ceremonial role. She
always told us she wasn’t interested.”
The change has been swift and
ominous. Today, as Zimbabwe counts
down the days to the ageing President’s
departure, all eyes are firmly on his
wife. Opposition leader Morgan
Tsvangirai has accused her of
masterminding a “palace coup”
and claimed that she was already
in effective control.
If so, the responsibilities of power
have done nothing to diminish the
First Lady’s taste for luxuries. She iscurrently embroiled in a bizarre legal
dispute with a Harare-based Lebanese
diamond dealer, who supplied her
with a $2 million ring – supposedly
a present from her husband to mark
their 20th wedding anniversary.
The dealer, Jamal Ahmed, claims
Grace took delivery of the ring, then
sent it back, demanding that a full
refund be paid into a private
bank account in Dubai.
Jamal refused, saying he had
run up considerable costs in
preparing the ring and would
risk facing money-laundering
charges if he paid the money into
a foreign account.
Grace retaliated, he claims
in court papers, “by launching
a campaign of terror and
harassment against me, where
I was threatened, insulted and
told she could do anything to me
because this was Zimbabwe.”
Three properties he owns were
seized and a judge’s order to
hand them back has been ignored.
For the average Zimbabwean
struggling by on $3 a day, in a
country with an 80 per cent
unemployment rate and almost
no functioning services, the
First Lady’s diamond difficulties
feed the fury of the masses.
The exhausted nation has
sustained itself for years with
the hope that when Robert
Mugabe dies, things will get
better. Now, the prospect is of
anotherMugabe taking over and
things getting even worse.
“Grace doesn’t know much about
politics,” says an old Harare hand
from the colonial days. “But she has
a pretty good idea of what could
happen to her when the old man goes.
Let’s say there are a lot of people who
are not well-disposed towards her.
At some stage, she will have to make
up her mind.”
For most of her pampered life,
Grace’s idea of a tough decision has
been choosing between Tiffany and
Cartier, Armani and Valentino. Soon,
she must make one that matters. And
until she does, the lights will be
burning late at Graceland.AWW“They say I want
tobe President.
Why not?”
The Mugabes at
a Heroes’ Day
commemoration in
Harare in 2015.