Grace Mugabe

Grace Ntombizodwa Mugabe (née Marufu; born 23 July 1965) is a Zimbabwean entrepreneur, politician and the widow of the late President Robert Mugabe.

In 1970, she moved to Rhodesia, to live with her mother, Idah Marufu in Chivhu while her father stayed and worked in South Africa to support his family.

She attended primary school in Chivhu and then the Kriste Mambo secondary school in Manicaland.

She married air force pilot Stanley Goreraza and they had a son, Russell Goreraza, born in 1984 when Grace was 19 years old.

Whilst working as secretary to the president, Robert Mugabe, she became his mistress at a time when she was still married to Stanley Goreraza – and had two children, Bona born in 1988, named after Mugabe's mother, and Robert Peter Jr.

After the death of Mugabe's first wife, Sally Hayfron, the couple were married in an extravagant Catholic mass titled the "Wedding of the Century" by the Zimbabwe press.

At the time of their marriage, Grace Marufu was 31 and Robert Mugabe was 72 years old.

Their second child, Robert Mugabe junior, was born in the early 1990s.

She served as the First Lady of Zimbabwe from 1996 until her husband's resignation in November 2017, a week after he was ousted from power.

Starting as a secretary to Mugabe, she rose in the ranks of the ruling ZANU–PF party to become the head of its Women's League and a key figure in the Generation 40 faction.

At the same time, she gained a reputation for privilege and extravagance during a period of economic turmoil in the country.

She was given the nickname Gucci Grace due to her extravagance.

In 1997, she gave birth to the couple's third child, Chatunga Berlamine Mugabe.

After observers from the European Union were barred from examining Zimbabwe's 2002 elections, the EU imposed sanctions on 20 members of the Zimbabwe leadership and then, in July, extended them to include Grace Mugabe and 51 others, banning them from travelling to participating countries and freezing any assets held there.

Grace Mugabe enrolled as an undergraduate student at the School of Liberal Arts, Renmin University in China in 2007, studying the Chinese language.

She graduated in 2011.

She admitted, however, that she was not proficient in Chinese after finishing the degree.

Mugabe was cited as one of the Top 100 most influential Africans by New African magazine in 2014.

Grace Ntombizodwa was born in Benoni, South Africa to migrant parents as the fourth of five children in the family.

In late 2014, Grace Mugabe was critical of Vice-President Joice Mujuru, who allegedly plotted against her husband, President Mugabe.

Ultimately, the accusations against Mujuru resulted in her elimination as a candidate to succeed Mugabe and her effectively becoming an outcast within ZANU-PF by the time it held a party congress in December 2014.

Meanwhile, Grace Mugabe's political prominence increased.

She was nominated as head of the ZANU–PF Women's League, and delegates to the party congress approved her nomination by acclamation on 6 December 2014.

In becoming head of the women's league, she also became a member of the ZANU-PF Politburo.

Since 2016, the first lady's involvement in ZANU-PF in-house politics has seen rumours pointing out that she is fronting one of the party's secretive factions, the G40 (Generation 40).

The other faction, Lacoste, assumingly led by the Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Factionalism in ZANU-PF at the time centered mainly on the Mugabe succession question.

She was expelled from the party, with other G40 members, during the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état.

The feud between Grace Mugabe and Mnangagwa reached a tipping point in late September 2017, with both parties pointing fingers to each other on ZANU PF public gatherings.

While addressing an audience at Mahofa's memorial service, Mnangagwa claimed he was poisoned at a ZANU PF Youth Interface rally in Gwanda.

Soon after Mnangagwa's remarks, President Robert Mugabe called a shock cabinet reshuffle in what many believe to be power-shifting exercise.

Mnangagwa, like fellow suspected allies, lost the justice ministry.

October 2017 marked Grace Mugabe's peak political influence in ZANU PF.

In November 2017, Grace was instrumental in the firing of the then Vice-President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, after reprimanding him for causing divisions in Zanu PF.

Shortly thereafter, Grace expressed her intentions of taking up the Vice-Presidency post.

The country was in heightened tension and soon after that while Emmerson Mnangagwa had sought refuge outside of Zimbabwe, the military took over in a bloodless coup under General Constantino Chiwenga.

Grace Mugabe was notably invisible at this time with various reports of her whereabouts.

On 19 November, Grace Mugabe and 20 of her associates were expelled from the ZANU-PF.

Her mother Idah Marufu died on 31 August 2018, aged 84.

When Robert Mugabe died on 6 September 2019, both Mugabes were in Singapore.