Remarkable rise of Mugabe’s wife sows party chaos in Zimbabwe

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The devotees of Zimbabwe's First Lady call her "Amazing Grace" and "Amai" (mother) and even "Doctor" – a title she was awarded for a university doctorate that mysteriously took her only two months to complete.

Her detractors call her "Gucci Grace" and "The First Shopper" – a reference to her lavish shopping habits in the boutiques of Hong Kong and Singapore. But all sides agree that Robert Mugabe's wife, Grace, has triggered a political earthquake here, shaking up the ruling party, intensifying a power struggle and throwing doubt on the potential successors to the 90-year-old Zimbabwean autocrat.

Grace Mugabe's extraordinarily vicious attacks on Zimbabwe's vice-president, the anti-colonial struggle veteran Joice Mujuru, have brought chaos and confusion into the ruling ZANU-PF party, with just a few weeks remaining before a crucial party congress in early December.

Analysts say the First Lady's vitriolic accusations could destroy Ms. Mujuru's chances of succeeding Zimbabwe's nonagenarian president – if they don't first seed the divisions that could destroy the party itself.

The President's wife, a former typing-pool clerk who is 41 years younger than Mr. Mugabe, has dramatically jumped into politics in the past few weeks. Flying across the country in a presidential helicopter and holding mass rallies to denounce the Vice-President, she has boosted the prospects of Ms. Mujuru's long-time rival, Justice Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, nicknamed "The Crocodile." But more significantly, she has helped Mr. Mugabe tighten his grip on power, keeping his successors at bay and allowing him to extend his 34-year rule over Zimbabwe.

For decades, Mr. Mugabe has preserved his power by balancing the factions within his party, hammering back any contender who gained too much influence. Diplomats call it "Whac-A-Mole" – a game of whacking anyone who pops up in front – and Ms. Mujuru is the latest victim, after she seemed to be capturing the front-runner role in the race to succeed the President.

Mr. Mugabe's declining health and advancing age have prompted some Zimbabweans to speculate he will be gone before the next election, in 2018, but he is determined to retain power at all costs. If a potential successor such as Ms. Mujuru becomes too powerful, he could fall into a lame-duck role – a position he cannot tolerate, according to most political observers here.

While the President's response to the latest political jostling may be just the continuation of his Whac-A-Mole strategy, the new twist is the remarkable rise of Ms. Mugabe – who has even hinted that she could succeed her husband as president, although most analysts believe she is too disliked and inexperienced to survive politically after his death.

Zimbabweans have been shocked by Ms. Mugabe's crude and brutal assaults on Ms. Mujuru. At her rallies, she denounced the Vice-President as a lazy and corrupt extortionist, saying Ms. Mujuru must be "dumped" and "exposed" so that even "wild dogs and flies" would be repulsed by her. She refused to shake Ms. Mujuru's hand when they met at an airport.

The attacks have been echoed by Zimbabwe's state-controlled media, implying that Mr. Mugabe himself is supporting the campaign against his Vice-President. The campaign has sparked a furor, with the leader of Zimbabwe's war veterans association, Jabulani Sibanda, complaining that Mr. Mugabe has engineered a "bedroom coup."

Ms. Mugabe was just 20 when she began working in Mr. Mugabe's presidential typing pool, and she soon caught his eye, becoming his secretary and mistress while his first wife, Sally, was dying of cancer. They married in 1996. But until the past few weeks, Ms. Mugabe was rarely in the spotlight. Instead, she was accumulating wealth and property, including a lucrative dairy business and several farms.

Today, she has leapfrogged into a top political role. She has been nominated to lead the women's league of the ruling party, a post that will vault her into its powerful Politburo when the congress rubber stamps the appointment next month.

The question now is whether the congress will also dump Ms. Mujuru from her post as the party's deputy leader. But the governing party has already suffered heavy "collateral damage" as a result of the "mudslinging and name-calling" by Ms. Mugabe and others, according to Harare-based political analyst Alex Rusero.

"There's too much harshness and contempt and fury," Mr. Rusero said in an interview. "It's very chaotic, very anarchical. It's a war of all against all."

David Moore, a Canadian academic who specializes in Zimbabwean politics, said the infighting is a result of Mr. Mugabe's refusal to allow a normal succession process. "When he goes, all hell will break loose," Mr. Moore said.

"A lot of people are laughing about Grace Mugabe, but I think it's a foreshadowing of some very nasty stuff. Her discourse is scary. The genie is out of the bottle. She's on nobody's side except her own."