 when he was ousted in a coup in November 2017. This circumstance brought forward some of the things that would have happened in the wake of Mugabe's actual death but postponed others.
Firstly, Grace’s allies were forced to flee the country, fearing for their lives. Two of them, Professor Jonathan Moyo and Saviour Kasukuwere, both cabinet ministers at the time had their homes shot at and ransacked on the eve of the coup. Their lives were in danger. They remain in exile to this day, although Kasukuwere went back for a while before he felt persecuted and fled again.
Others who are currently in exile are former ministers, Patrick Zhuwau who is also Mugabe’s nephew, Walter Mzembi, Mandiitawepi Chimene and former Police Commissioner, Augustine Chihuri.
Those who remained in Zimbabwe were arrested. Some of them, like former minister Ignatius Chombo is on bail, awaiting trial. Others, like Saviour Kasukuwere’s brother Dickson Mafios were convicted. He is currently serving his sentence. Mafios was publicly critical of Mnangagwa during the succession wars and sympathisers believe his case had more to do with political punishment. His situation has given credence to fears by the G40 faction that they will not be safe under the Mnangagwa regime.
There is a widely-held view that Mnangagwa’s anti-corruption campaign is disproportionately targeting political opponents while sparing his allies in the bruising battle to succeed Mugabe a couple of years ago.
However, Mugabe's death has created a new dynamic. If the Mnangagwa regime held back on his account, will they change their approach now that Mugabe is gone and Grace is alone, exposed and vulnerable? Will her old enemies maintain the facade? Have they forgotten and forgiven everything that Grace said or did during the succession period?
Mugabe was the great shield. They could never have publicly humiliated him during his lifetime for fear of upsetting the neighbours whose support the regime needs. Mnangagwa knew that Mugabe still commanded a great deal of respect across the African region. They would have regarded any action against him as humiliating and disagreeable. After all, they had supported Mnangagwa when he usurped power but in return, he was expected to treat the old warrior with dignity. Likewise, going after his wife would have been regarded as an indirect assault upon Mugabe.
Nevertheless, even though they continued to receive state support, the Mugabe family still complained of mistreatment and harassment by the Mnangagwa regime. When the African Union Chairman paid him a courtesy call in February 2018, Mugabe expressed his woes. “They told you I was safe, but how can I be in this environment?," he was quoted as having told the AU Chairman by the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. “My wife is crying daily. They are persecuting her … What am I without my wife and family? We are not safe," he continued. The irony is that these noble thoughts never crossed Mugabe's mind when his regime victimised and terrorised citizens.
At the time, Mugabe was moaning over the arrest of Professor Levy Nyagura, the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, the institution which awarded Grace a controversial PhD degree in 2014. He saw it as harassment targeting his wife whom he defended as having “worked day and night” for the PhD, apparently with some assistance from him. Nyagura’s case is still pending in the courts of law and it hangs over Grace's head like the sword of Damocles. If Nyagura is convicted, that could have serious implications for Grace.
The Mnangagwa regime may have put up a public show of supporting and looking after the Mugabes but the facade was hard to maintain. The regime did go after close members of the extended family. Grace’s sister, a Mrs Gumbochuma was arrested and is currently out on bail. Mugabe’s nephews, Albert Mugabe and Walter Chidhakwa were also arrested on corruption charges. Both were senior public officers, with Chidhakwa being a former Minister.
There are also other legal matters which will affect Grace but are outside the immediate control of the government. However, for someone who was so used to the protection of the state even for patently unlawful conduct, it will seem like persecution and the lack of protection might appear like neglect. On the other hand, if the government interferes in such matters, it will be accused of abusing its power to protect the privileged elites.
These matters include the criminal charges pending in South Africa over the alleged assault of a young woman, Gabriella Engels, in August 2017. That incident caused a diplomatic stir between South Africa and Zimbabwe when the latter controversially invoked diplomatic immunity, saving her from arrest and prosecution.
However, this shield is no longer available after a South African court lifted the diplomatic immunity on the grounds the responsible minister in South Africa had acted unconstitutionally. This means Grace is liable to arrest and prosecution in South Africa. With the diplomatic immunity lifted there is nothing that the Mnangagwa regime can do to protect her without facing charges of abusing power.
Another legal matter is where Grace was sued by a Lebanese businessman, Jamal Ahmed back in 2016, over a botched $1,2 million diamond ring deal. Grace had allegedly dispossessed the Lebanese dealer of his properties in Harare in place of a refund for the diamond ring which she had paid for but no longer wanted. The diamond ring was meant to be a present to Mugabe on their 20th wedding anniversary. The police appeared to protect her at the time but the Lebanese businessman has since won the case in the courts of law.
As if these aren’t enough troubles it emerged last year that her lawyers in that and other cases, Manase and Manase were suing her for legal fees amounting to over $US200,000.
Barely two weeks ago, ZESA, Zimbabwe’s electricity provider switched off power to the Mugabes' family business on grounds of unpaid bills. It took the political intervention the Minister of Energy and Power Development to restore electricity to the businesses. Given what we now know, the government’s intervention may have been on compassionate grounds - the family was already in precarious circumstances with Mugabe on his death-bed.
But this was just a reprieve. The fact that a state-owned company had taken such drastic action was an indication that the fear factor over the Mugabes was gone. Would this moratorium be extended again in future? Perhaps unlikely. It is common knowledge that businesses of political elites have taken advantage of their political proximity which has seen them dodging bills and other state obligations. The Mugabes' businesses were already struggling and this has worsened after the loss of political power and the freebies that sustained them. This will probably get worse.
It’s also likely that other disgruntled parties only held back from taking legal action on account of their respect for or fear of Mugabe. His demise may open floodgates of litigation against Grace, Mugabe's estate and their businesses. Indeed, there may be a flurry of legal actions by victims, trying their chances against the estate.
The family probably stashed away its loot in foreign countries. Would exile be safer? It's an option that cannot be discounted but there is no guarantee of safety there either.
It is very easy for people to blame the Marie Antoinettes and Lady Macbeths of this world; to place upon their shoulders the weight of failure and in the process, shift responsibility from their husbands. The wives become more fiendish in our eyes compared to their husbands who are even portrayed as victims of their manipulative wives. Yet in truth, these men have full agency and must be held accountable for their iniquitous ways in their own right without parcelling out their culpability to the women in their lives.
The idea of representing Mugabe as a victim of a manipulative Grace is popular but it ignores the fact that Mugabe himself was a Machiavellian character, supremely gifted in the art of manipulation and using anyone, to protect his power. It's a feature that runs throughout his life, indeed dating back long before Grace appeared on the scene. Gukurahundi, the greatest crime of his tenure, had already happened. Grace was just a schoolgirl at the time. An incorrigibly corrupt system was already in place. Mugabe had long consolidated his power.
Did she accelerate the demise? Perhaps she did but she was not, as many have accused her, the cause of Mugabe’s multiple failings. If she is guilty of not stopping Mugabe’s killing machine in the 2000s, then how can Sally, his first wife, be innocent of the same charge when she was married to him during Gukurahundi? Yet by many accounts, Sally is often represented as the good one and Grace as the bad one. It is said that Mugabe took a turn for the worse when he married Grace. It’s a simplistic narrative which grossly underestimates Mugabe’s agency unaffected by the women in his life. It could have been any woman, Mugabe would have wanted to stay in power for as long as he liked.
Interestingly, the narrative which makes Grace the accused-in-chief ignores and almost exonerates the men in Mugabe’s life - the politicians, the generals, the bureaucrats- all of whom were far more influential in the management of public affairs. These were by far the real actors in Mugabe's political life - the water-carriers who served him faithfully until they decided to betray him. Ironically, it is these men who propagated the “Chin