Will ‘DisGrace’ Mugabe become Zimbabwe’s first female president?

Many Zimbabweans fear a continuation of the Mugabe dynasty, especially in the form of the president’s scandal-prone wife

Grace Mugabe, who is tipped to be named by her 90-year-old husband as his vice-president and heir apparent. Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

Ibbo Mandaza remembers the first time he saw Grace Marufu: “She was very beautiful, pretty braids, sitting at the switchboard at State House.” But one day, a presidential official warned him not to flirt with the secretarial staff, and he wondered why. Then, in 1989, he noticed that Grace was pregnant. “And it clicked.”

The father of Marufu’s child was Robert Mugabe, leader of Zimbabwe and a married man. A second child would follow with the president’s mistress even as his wife, Sally, fell terminally ill. “Bob was moving between the maternity ward and Sally’s ICU unit,” recalled Mandaza, a former civil servant.

When Grace Mugabe fulfilled her dream of rising from secretary to first lady by marrying the man four decades her senior, that appeared to be the limit of her ambition. It was not. On Saturday she is tipped to be named by 90-year-old Robert Mugabe as his vice-president and heir apparent – a political earthquake that six months ago seemed unthinkable.

The manoeuvre comes with Africa’s oldest leader looking frail and frequently dozing off during meetings of the Zanu-PF party politburo, according to one regular attender.

Robert and Grace Mugabe. Some say the first lady feels victimised by the western press. Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

After 34 years of Robert Mugabe’s iron rule, the battle for succession is on, pitting comrade against comrade, faction against faction. It is endgame played out in an atmosphere seething with conspiracy, treachery, paranoia, recrimination, backstabbing and wild allegations of a plot to assassinate the president. The party that has dominated Zimbabwe since independence is in disarray.

Many here are horrified by the prospect of a continuation of the Mugabe dynasty, especially in the form of Grace. Some have never forgiven her or Robert Mugabe for the extramarital affair conducted when the popular Sally was alive (Grace was also married at the time). For years she has been dubbed DisGrace, Gucci Grace and First Shopper because of her penchant for extravagant spending sprees – she allegedly blew $120,000 on one trip to Paris – even as the economy tanked, with an estimated four in five people living below the poverty line.

She also accumulated property, including a lucrative dairy business and several farms, and founded an orphanage, but the notion of President Mugabe mark II seemed absurd. Then, on her 49th birthday in July, she entered politics like a bolt from the blue and, despite no experience, she was nominated as head of the Zanu-PF women’s league. She also gained a sociology PhD from the University of Zimbabwe in just three months in what critics saw as a desperate push for gravitas. She was ceremonially capped by her husband and mercilessly mocked by academics.

Grace Mugabe was nominated as head of the Zanu-PF’s women’s league.Photograph: Philimon Bulawayo/Reuters

Dr Grace, or Amai (Mother) Mugabe, ripped through the political establishment like a tornado. She embarked on a “meet the people tour”, also nicknamed the “Graceland tour”, that left the old guard dazed and reeling. “They say I want to be president,” she said at one rally. “Why not? Am I not a Zimbabwean?”

Mandaza, now head of the Southern African Political and Economic Series Trust thinktank, said: “The biggest revelations were these rallies of hers. Before, she would sit looking bored at state functions, impeccably beautiful. She was hated for her lavish style but most people didn’t know who she was.

“Then suddenly people see her for three hours a day on state television and it’s: ‘Wow, who is this woman? Stop it!’ She was uncouth, unbecoming. People were saying this woman comes from a mining compound because some finesse is expected. The debate was to what extent she was she her own person or a missile sent by her husband. I think both.”