The writing had been on the wall for the dictator who has ruled over Zimbabwe for 37 years after a shock coup was orchestrated by the vice president he sacked last week.
A week of chaos and uncertainty followed last Tuesday’s news that Robert Mugabe was under house arrest in his sprawling mansion leaving the country’s governance in turmoil.
His former vice president, Emmerson ‘The Crocodile’ Mnangagwa, had been the figurehead of the takeover which seemed to be heading to a neat conclusion with a live TV resignation by Mugabe yesterday.
Unexpectedly, the stubborn leader dug his claws in and instead delivered a rambling 20-minute speech to say he was staying on as the country’s president.
Behind the scenes, the Parliament of Zimbabwe prepared impeachment charges against Mugabe ready to forcibly oust him as leader.
But Mugabe shocked the world for the second time in two days by standing down in a letter read out by the speaker of the parliament which sparked jubilation in the streets of Harare.
But how did the world’s oldest dictator come to hold so much power for so long – and what influenced him to become the infamous tyrant of his later years?
Robert Mugabe delivers a speech during the election campaign in Gwelo, Rhodesia, in February 1980. The writing had been on the wall for the dictator who has ruled over Zimbabwe for 37 years after a shock coup was orchestrated by the vice president he sacked last week
President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe during an election rally for his Zanu-PF party in Bulawayo back in 2005. A week of chaos and uncertainty followed last Tuesday’s news that Robert Mugabe was under house arrest in his sprawling mansion leaving the country’s governance in turmoil
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on February 21, 1924 at a Catholic mission village near Southern Rhodesia’s capital city, Salisbury. Pictured left: Mugabe with Mnangagwa and Josiah Tongogara, a guerrilla commander. Pictured right: Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace arrive at a ZANU PF rally in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2013
Behind the scenes, the Parliament of Zimbabwe prepared impeachment charges against Mugabe ready to forcibly oust him as leader. But Mugabe shocked the world for the second time in two days by standing down in a letter read out by the speaker of the parliament which sparked jubilation in the streets of Harare. He is pictured here celebrating his 90th birthday in Harare
Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on February 21, 1924 at a Catholic mission village near Southern Rhodesia’s capital city, Salisbury.
His father, Gabriel Matibiri, was a carpenter and his mother, Bona, was a religious teacher.
Raised by Jesuits, the young Mugabe was instilled with an austere sense of self-discipline from the beginning of his life.
He qualified as a teacher at 17, later studying at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa’s future black nationalist leaders. Pictured: Mugabe with his first wife, Sally, at Buckingham Palace in 1982
When he was 10, his father walked out on the family, and in his absence an Irish Catholic who praised opponents of the British Empire – of which Mugabe was a subject – became a major influence on his life.
Father Jerome O’Hea also preached a philosophy of racial equality as well teaching him about the Irish War of Independence and how revolutionaries had seized their country back from the British.
Father O’Hea doted on Mugabe, telling his mother that one day he would be ‘an important somebody’ and a ‘leader’.
His mother is said to have believed Father O’Hea had brought that prophecy from god, putting his needs above his five siblings’.
Before he died in 1970, Father O’Hea said his former pupil had ‘an exceptional mind and an exceptional heart’.
Mugabe was described as a loner, and a studious child known to carry a book even while tending cattle in the bush.
After his time at the mission, he trained as a teacher – with his tuition fees paid for partly by Father O’Hea.
He qualified as a teacher at the age of 17, later studying at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa’s future black nationalist leaders.
It was during this period that Mugabe was introduced to Marxism by South African communists.
He later embraced Marxist doctrine, but claimed that his biggest influence was Mohandas Gandhi because of his behaviour during the Indian struggle for independence.
When he returned to Southern Rhodesia in 1952, he was ‘completely hostile’ to European imperialism.
He headed to Ghana to teach in 1958, where he was influenced by president Kwame Nkrumah.
When he was 10, his father walked out on the family, and in his absence an Irish Catholic who praised opponents of the British Empire – of which Mugabe was a subject – became a major influence on his life
Later in his rule, he used blistering rhetoric to blame his country’s downward spiral on Western sanctions, though they were targeted personally at Mugabe and his henchmen rather than at Zimbabwe’s economy. Pictured left: Mugabe with his old hero Fidel Castro in 2005. Right: With his old queen, Elizabeth II, in 2008
First heralded as a liberator who rid the former British colony Rhodesia of white minority rule, Robert Gabriel Mugabe was soon cast in the role of a despot who crushed political dissent and ruined the national economy. Pictured: Mugabe meeting with North Korea’s Kim Il-Sung in 1993
Old dictators club: President Mugabe embraces Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi at the inauguration ceremony of South African president Jacob Zuma on May 9, 2009 in Pretoria, South Africa
Mugabe was described as a loner, and a studious child known to carry a book even while tending cattle in the bush. Pictured: Mugabe during his marriage to second wife Grace
Britain’s former foreign secretary Peter Carrington knew Mugabe well, having mediated the Lancaster House talks that paved the way for Zimbabwe’s independence. He told his biographer that Mugabe ‘wasn’t human at all,’ adding: ‘There was a sort of reptilian quality about him.’ Pictured: The president with Tony Blair in 1997
Mugabe repeatedly called for violence against white people in Rhodesia during the war of independence, lashing out at them in racist rants as being ‘blood-sucking exploiters’ and ‘sadistic killers’. Pictured right: A victim of the seizure of white farms overseen by Mugabe’s regime decades after he came to power. Left: Two men standing by the the gates of a farm which they seized from white farmers in 2009
He qualified as a teacher at the age of 17, later studying at Fort Hare University in South Africa (pictured), where he met many of southern Africa’s future black nationalist leaders
Mugabe qualified as a teacher at the age of 17, later studying at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa’s future black nationalist leaders. Pictured: Mugabe with Margaret Thatcher in 1988
He ultimately embraced Marxist doctrine, but claimed that his biggest influence was Mohandas Gandhi because of his behaviour during the Indian struggle for independence. Pictured: Mugabe in 1979, a year before he became prime minister
First heralded as a liberator who rid the former British colony Rhodesia of white minority rule, Mugabe (pictured above with Nelson Mandela) was soon cast in the role of a despot who crushed political dissent and ruined the national economy
During the war against white rule, he made frequent radio speeches during which he praised communist revolutionaries, including Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro and mass murderers Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong. Pictured: Mugabe with New Zealand PM David Lange in 1985
Mugabe said he went to the country as an ‘adventurist’ because he wanted to see what an independent African state looked like (Ghana was the first nation in the continent to win freedom from a European power).
While there, he attended the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute in Winneba and later claimed that it was while he was in Ghana that fully embraced Marxism.
Mugabe returned to his homeland and was detained for his nationalist activities in 1964 before spending the next 10 years in prison camps or jails.
During his incarceration, he gained three degrees through correspondence – but the years in prison left their mark.
His four-year-old son by his first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Francesca Hayfron, died while he was behind bars.
Rhodesian leader Ian Smith denied him leave to attend the funeral.
During the struggle against white rule, Mugabe was famous as a propagandist.
He made frequent radio speeches during which he praised communist revolutionaries, including Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro and mass murderers Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Mugabe also repeatedly called for violence against white people in Rhodesia, lashing out at them in racist rants as being ‘blood-sucking exploiters’ and ‘sadistic killers’.
In one particularly racist speech, he said: ‘Let us hammer [the white man] to defeat. Let us blow up his citadel. Let us give him no time to rest. Let us chase him in every corner. Let us rid our home of this settler vermin.’
When the war was won, the country freed and renamed Zimbabwe, Mugabe swept to power in 1980 elections.
A violent insurgency and economic sanctions had forced the Rhodesian government to the negotiating table.
In office he initially won international plaudits for his declared policy of racial reconciliation and for extending improved education and health services to the black majority.
But his lustre faded quickly.
Mugabe took control of one wing in the guerrilla war for independence – the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and its armed forces – after his release from prison in 1974.
His partner in the armed struggle – the leader of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), Joshua Nkomo – was one of the early casualties of Mugabe’s crackdown on dissent.
Nkomo was dismissed from government, where he held the home affairs portfolio, after the discovery of an arms cache in his Matabeleland province stronghold in 1982.
Mugabe, whose party drew most of its support from the ethnic Shona majority, then unleashed his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade on Nkomo’s Ndebele people in a campaign known as Gukurahundi that killed an estimated 20,000 suspected dissidents.
He headed to Ghana to teach in 1958, where he was influenced by president Kwame Nkrumah. Mugabe said he went to the country as an ‘adventurist’ because he wanted to see what an independent African state looked like (Ghana was the first nation in the continent to win freedom from a European power). Pictured: Mugabe with British Foreign Secretary David Owen
During his incarceration, he gained three degrees through correspondence – but the years in prison left their mark. His four-year-old son by his first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Francesca Hayfron, died while he was behind bars. Rhodesian leader Ian Smith (left) denied him leave to attend the funeral. Right: His onetime ally Joshua Nkomo. Nkomo was dismissed from government, where he held the home affairs portfolio, after the discovery of an arms cache in his Matabeleland province stronghold in 1982
Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, leaders of the Zimbabwe Patriotic Front, hold a conference in London with British politicians to discuss the future of the independent state of Zimbabwe
In the final decades of his rule, Mugabe – one of the world’s most recognisable leaders with his thin stripe of moustache and thick-rimmed spectacles – had embraced his new role as the antagonist of the West. Pictured: Mugabe being made president by the country’s former president, Canaan Banana
It was the seizure of white-owned farms nearly two decades later that would complete Mugabe’s transformation from darling of the West into international pariah – though his status as a liberation hero still resonates in many parts of Africa.
Aimed largely at placating angry war veterans who threatened to destabilise his rule, the land reform policy wrecked the crucial agricultural sector, caused foreign investors to flee and helped plunge the country into economic misery.
At the same time, critics say, Mugabe clung to power through increased repression of human rights and by rigging elections.
Mugabe had two sons and a daughter by second wife Grace.
The First Lady has been viewed as a front-runner to succeed her husband after decades of his vice-like grip on power.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe with his son Robert Jr. He can also be seen smiling at his grandson during his 93rd birthday celebrations
Mugabe cuts his birthday cake with his children, including Chatunga Mugabe (second left) and Bona Mugabe (centre) as well as his wife Grace Mugabe (second right) during his 89th birthday
President Mugabe with Queen Elizabeth ll and Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh, at Buckingham Palace during his state visit to Britain in May 1994
Princess Diana is pictured meeting President Robert Mugabe during a British Royal visit to Zimbabwe in 1993
‘His real obsession was not with personal wealth but with power,’ said biographer Martin Meredith.
‘Year after year Mugabe sustained his rule through violence and repression — crushing political opponents, violating the courts, trampling on property rights, suppressing the independent press and rigging elections.’
Mugabe once quipped that he’d rule his country until he turned 100.
But, aged 93, his grip on power seems to be ebbing as tensions erupt between his loyal ZANU-PF party and the military that has helped keep him in office.
First heralded as a liberator who rid the former British colony Rhodesia of white minority rule, Mugabe was soon cast in the role of a despot who crushed political dissent and ruined the national economy.
Zimbabweans sitting in front of Salibury prison in 1968 after the triple hanging of James Dhlamini, Victor Mlambo and Duly Shadrack, was ordered by Ian Smith’s government – despite Queen Elizabeth II issuing a royal reprieve. Mugabe spent time there during his opposition to white rule
‘He was a great leader whose leadership degenerated to a level where he really brought Zimbabwe to its knees,’ said University of South Africa professor Shadrack Gutto.
Britain’s former foreign secretary Peter Carrington knew Mugabe well, having mediated the Lancaster House talks that paved the way for Zimbabwe’s independence.
‘Mugabe wasn’t human at all,’ Carrington told biographer Heidi Holland. ‘There was a sort of reptilian quality about him.
‘You could admire his skills and intellect… but he was an awfully slippery sort of person.’
In the final decades of his rule, Mugabe – one of the world’s most recognisable leaders with his thin stripe of moustache and thick-rimmed spectacles – has embraced his new role as the antagonist of the West.
He used blistering rhetoric to blame his country’s downward spiral on Western sanctions, though they were targeted personally at Mugabe and his henchmen rather than at Zimbabwe’s economy.
‘If people say you are dictator… you know they are saying this merely to tarnish and demean your status, then you don’t pay much attention,’ he said in a 2013 documentary.
After decades in which the subject of succession was virtually taboo, a vicious struggle to take over after his death became apparent among the party elite as he reached his 90s and became visibly frail.
He had been rumoured for years to have prostate cancer, but according to the official account, his frequent trips to Singapore were related to his treatment for cataracts.
Mugabe’s second wife Grace – his former secretary who is 41 years his junior and has been seen as a potential successor – boasted that even in his 80s he would rise before dawn to work out.
‘It’s true I was dead. I resurrected as I always do once I get back to my country. I am real again,’ he joked in 2016 after returning from a foreign trip, mocking rumours that he had died.
But in his later years, he has stumbled and fallen more than once and delivered the wrong speech at the opening of parliament last year.
Gukurahundi atrocities of the 1980s
After Mugabe won the election of 1980 and became Zimbabwe’s first prime minister, there were fears a potential takeover of the country by the Ndebele ethnic minority may be afoot.
In 1983, Mnangagwa led a major crackdown in Matabeleland, in the southwest of Zimbabwe.
Matabeleland was the stronghold of Mugabe’s political rival, Joshua Nkomo. Mugabe blamed members of Nkomo’s party for a series of murders and attacks on property in the country.
During the operation between 1983 and 87 – later known as the Gukurahundi (or ‘the early rain which washes away the before the spring rains’) – tens of thousands of civilians were killed.
The agreement between North Korea and Mugabe for the training of the Fifth Brigade was signed in October 1980, when the Zimbabwean prime minister met with Kim Il Sung. Pictured: The Fifth Brigade in 1982 at Independence Day celebrations in Salisbury. The banner overhead reads: ‘Let Us Lay Down Our Lives for Cde. R.G. Mugahe’
The North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade was responsible for the atrocities, which also included the torture and rape of tens of thousands of in Matabeleland.
Showing that they had learned from their Communist teachers, the Fifth Brigade troops summarily detained and executed Ndebele men of fighting age, who were automatically deemed guilty of subversion.
Many were also marched to re-education camps, a popular tactic employed by Stalinist North Korea as well as Communist China.
On one occasion, in March of 1983, the Fifth Brigade slaughtered 55 people – apparently at random – on the banks of the Cewale River.
The soldiers reportedly forced their victims to dig their own graves before being shot.
The agreement between North Korea and Mugabe for the training of the Fifth Brigade was signed in October 1980, when the Zimbabwean prime minister met with Kim Il Sung.
The North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade (pictured training in 1984) was responsible for the atrocities, which also included the torture and rape of tens of thousands of in Matabeleland
Over a hundred North Koreans arrived a year later to train the elite troops.
But by 1988, the reputation of the brigade – whose soldiers were identifiable by their distinctive red berets – was deemed so toxic that it was disbanded.
None of the perpetrators of the atrocities has ever been brought to justice, with those implicated including Mugabe and Mnangagwa.
Mnangagwa was mentioned by, among others, the tycoon Roland Rowland at the time of the massacres.
He wrote to the US ambassador that Mnangagwa, as security minister, was ‘fully aware’ of the slaughter going on in the country’s south.
The women who helped create a tyrant: How Mugabe’s hatred of colonial Britain grew after he fought his first wife’s deportation from London… before second wife Grace nurtured his evil political extremes
- Zimbabwean dictator met his first wife Sally Hayfron in 1958 when they were teaching at a Ghanaian college
- They married in 1960 but early on in relationship Robert Mugabe was sent to prison for ‘subversive speech’
- She fled to London in the mid 1960s but by the end of the decade her visa application was rejected by the UK
- Sally Hefron died of kidney failure in 1992, 12 years after she became the much-loved first lady of Zimbabwe
- Robert Mugabe had already started sleeping around before she died and remarried Grace Marufu in 1996
- The current first lady facilitated his extreme dictatorship and is hated in Zimbabwe for her lavish lifestyle
They say behind every great man is a great woman, but it seems the same can be said of evil men.
Robert Mugabe’s hatred of colonial Britain grew after he fought his first wife’s deportation from London and his second wife Grace nurtured his dark extremes.
The Zimbabwean tyrant met Sally Hayfron in 1958 when they were both teaching at a college in Ghana and two years later they married in Harare.
Early in their marriage, Mugabe was sent to prison for ‘subversive speech’, but his wife stood by his side, sharing his political views, and enabling his extremism.
As the political climate in Zimbabwe became too fractious for her to stay in the late 60s, she fled to London only for her to be deported, which would lay the foundations of Mugabe’s hatred of all things British as he tried in vain to block it.
Sally died in 1992 and Mugabe remarried a woman who would become known as Gucci Grace – hated for many reasons including her luxury lifestyle.
In an ironic twist of fate, it is her who is seen as the main threat to her husband as he loses his grip on the nation he has ruled over with an iron fist for 37 years.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace attend his birthday celebrations in Masvingo last year.
Robert Mugabe’s hatred of colonial Britain grew after he fought his first wife’s deportation from London and his second wife Grace nurtured his dark extremes. The Zimbabwean tyrant met Sally Hayfron (right) in 1958 when they were both teaching at a college in Ghana and two years later they married in Harare
Sally died in 1992 and Mugabe remarried a woman who would become known as Gucci Grace (right) – hated for many reasons including her luxury lifestyle. In an ironic twist of fate, it is her who is seen as the main threat to her husband as he loses his grip on the nation he has ruled over with an iron fist for 37 years
When Mugabe met his first wife, friends said the attraction was immediate but that the pair were worlds apart.
His family was poor and his father had abandoned Mugabe and his mother in 1934 to look for work in Bulawayo, the second largest city in – as it was then called – Rhodesia.
The Hefrons, however, had strong links to the Ghanaian prime minister at the time, Kwame Nkrumah, and did not struggle for cash as part of the nationalist movement in colonial Ghana.
At the college, Mugabe was known as a bit of a loner and a bookworm while his bride-to-be was exuberant and beautiful.
Their personalities may not have been a match, but their political views were in tune, and Mugabe took her home to meet his mother.
Sally Hefron clearly made a good impression, because a year later in 1960 she became Mrs Mugabe in a modest church ceremony at St Peter’s Catholic Church in Harare, then a black township of Salisbury.
Robert Mugabe, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, visits the Queen at Buckingham Palace with his wife Sally in May 1982
Their marriage did not conform to the norm in the country at the time where women would stay at home to cook and raise children.
They both wanted a free Zimbabwe and linked up to drive Rhodesia’s independence movement, but it would come at a price.
Mugabe’s political activism brought him to the attention of the state government and in 1964 he was sentenced to 10 years behind bars.
Sally Mugabe continued the work that saw her husband incarcerated, only to find herself jailed for demonstrating against white rule.
The country’s prime minister at the time was Ian Smith, and by 1963 the political landscape had become so hostile she decided to move – first to Ghana and then to London.
She found work as a secretary with the Africa Centre in Covent Garden and continued to support her husband, who was busy using his time in prison to study.
In 1970, Mugabe found out the British government were planning to throw her out of the UK as her visa had expired.
Mugabe’s anger over the issue developed into a naked hatred of all things British.
In one letter to Downing Street, where Harold Wilson was in office, he wrote: ‘I pose these questions, Mr Prime Minister, because it is clear to me that the Home Office is hanging on to legal technicalities completely deprived of morality.’
Pressure mounted on the then Home Secretary Reginald Maudling, who refused to be swayed until a high-profile media campaign and a petition signed by more than 400 parliamentarians meant the government finally backtracked and allowed Sally Mugabe to stay.
It would be an episode Mugabe would never forget.
In 1975, walked free and was reunited with his wife in Mozambique, where he started a guerilla war of independence.
With a track record of extreme politics as his foundation, Robert Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s first black prime minister in 1980 with Sally as First Lady by his side.
She launched the Zimbabwe Women’s Cooperative in the UK and was still in touch with London’s African women’s organisations.
Power-hungry Mugabe was growing restless, but Sally was credited with keeping his feet on the ground and swaying him from making rash political decisions.
It was said she could lighten his mood merely by walking into a room, more than 20 years after the couple tied the knot.
Her compassion saw her nicknamed Amai – mother – in Zimbabwe, but when she found out she could not have any more children, cracks started to appear in the marriage.
Their only son, Michael Nhamodzenyika Mugabe, born September 27, 1963, died on Boxing Day 1966 from cerebral malaria in Ghana.
Mugabe began to have affairs and Sally’s health deteriorated.
On January 27, 1992, Sally Mugabe died of kidney failure, and without her around to steer him, Mugabe began to emerge as a tyrant.
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe gives a triumphant fisted salute as he emerges from Parliament following its official opening Wednesday. To his right is his wife, Sally
Zimbabwe Prime Minister Robert Mugabe with his new bride Grace Marufu after thier wedding ceremony at the Kutama catholic mission 80km (42 miles) west of Harare where the Zimbabwean president was educated
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe (L) and his wife Grace wave to Zanu PF followers as they arrive for a rally in the city of Marondera some 75km east of the capital Harare, June 10, 2000
This file photo taken on April 18, 2017 shows President Robert Mugabe kissing his wife and first lady Grace Mugabe during during the country’s 37th Independence Day celebrations at the National Sports Stadium in Harare
Four years later, he married his mistress Grace Marufu, a woman who facilitated his brutal regime.
Grace Mugabe was once dismissed as a lightweight shopping addict with no political interests, but she has recently emerged as a potential challenger for power.
Aged 52, the first lady is increasingly active in public life and in 2014 became the head the ZANU-PF party’s women’s wing.
Court politics are complex in Zimbabwe, but she is thought to be backed by the G-40, a group of young activists of the under-40 generation that has earned a reputation for aggression.
She regularly attends rallies across the country, railing against anyone alleged to be disloyal to the president, and handing out clothes and domestic goods.
She told crowds in 2015 that she would put her husband in a wheelchair if necessary so he could run for re-election.
Grace was one of Mugabe’s secretaries when their affair began in 1987, and they had two children in secret before the president’s wife died in 1992.
The couple then married at a lavish ceremony in 1996 attended by Nelson Mandela.
She has often been accused of extravagant spending on luxury clothes and international travel, and of involvement in corrupt land deals.
Dubbed ‘Gucci Grace’, ‘The First Shopper’ or even ‘DisGrace’, she showed her political mettle in 2014 with her ruthless campaign against then Vice President Joice Mujuru, who was then a contender to succeed her husband.
She launched sustained verbal attacks against Mujuru, accusing her of corruption and plotting to topple the president.
Soon afterwards, Mujuru, a former guerrilla fighter who had held cabinet posts in every Mugabe government since independence in 1980, was ousted from the party leadership and later from ZANU-PF.
Born on July 23, 1965, in South Africa, Grace Marufu has three children with Mugabe, 41 years her senior, as well as a son from her first marriage.
She has a short temper — perhaps in evidence last weekend when she allegedly assaulted a model who was at a Johannesburg hotel with the first lady’s two sons.
Grace, wife of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, listens to the national anthem during a rally in the town of Masvingo
In August she claimed diplomatic immunity, though the case may still cause much legal trouble.
She was granted diplomatic immunity in Hong Kong in 2009 after she repeatedly punched a British photographer for taking pictures of her at a luxury hotel.
But she told a South African Broadcasting Corporation programme that she is no longer concerned about what people think of her.
‘I have developed a thick skin, I don’t even care,’ she said. ‘My husband says ignorance is bliss.’
Nonetheless there have been efforts to change public perceptions, with her supporters showering her with new nicknames – such as ‘Dr Amai (Doctor Mother)’, ‘unifier’ and ‘queen of queens’.
Grace was also awarded a doctorate by the University of Zimbabwe, where her husband is chancellor, reportedly just three months after enrolling.
But political analyst Earnest Mudzengi said Grace Mugabe lacks popular appeal and has stirred disharmony in ZANU-PF.
‘She was literally hand-picked. She has created enemies and enemies are being created as we speak, just look at the purges in ZANU-PF,” Mudzengi said.
‘She does not have popular support and does not fit in the framework of how ZANU-PF leaders are chosen. Normally they would require that someone must have liberation war credentials or that they must have worked tirelessly for the party.’
Analysts suggest she may not want the top job herself but is positioning her family to try to ensure protection and support in what could be dangerous years after the president dies.
The 52-year-old has bought homes in Dubai and South Africa, spent £3million of state funds on her daughter’s wedding, and recently bought a £300,000 Rolls-Royce.
Her three sons, one from a previous marriage, angered Zimbabweans by flaunting their wealth.
One receipt posted online showed a single night’s spending of $3,000 – three times the average annual income.
The youngest recently filmed himself pouring expensive champagne over a diamond-encrusted watch, bragging he owned the timepiece because ‘daddy runs the whole country’.
Mugabe’s mismanagement has wrecked Zimbabwe, a well-educated nation with many natural resources.
He sparked history’s second-worst hyper-inflation, while seven in ten citizens are stuck in poverty.
That’s why, as the tanks roll in and rumours spread like wildfire, there will be few tears shed if this is indeed the end-game in an epic power struggle that leaves ‘the Old Man’ and his despised wife finally thrown from power.