It hasn’t been the best of weeks for Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace, who, in the wake of a creeping military coup, find themselves under house arrest in the presidential palace in Harare. As the Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu of Africa, they must be asking themselves if there is a way out for them that does not include a brace of hemlocks or an early-morning appointment with a firing squad.
When the Ceausescus were executed on the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1989, it was Elena who gave the firing party the more difficult task. While her husband, rather gamely you’d have to say, sang the Internationale, she went down swearing.
Grace Mugabe has a similar temperament and is held in much the same disregard by the bulk of her compatriots. She is likely to be saved, however, by the tradition in Africa – based on the desire on the part of those seizing power not to create a dangerous precedent – of exile, rather than execution, as the way to deal with dictators who have outstayed their welcome.
What matters for the moment is that the Army is in charge of the capital and the television station. Whether they also wrested control of Mugabe’s Twitter account is another matter. A tweet in his name that appeared yesterday afteroon at least sounded like him.
“I will rule Zimbabwe even in my death or in detention. I am UNBREAKABLE.”
Shades of Idi Amin.
The outgoing President (who for the moment retains his title, if not his dignity) has already been on the phone to his fellow autocrat, Jacob Zuma, no doubt to inquire about house prices in the South African wine country. Zuma, it is reported, had sent envoys north in a bid to discover for himself what is going on and to determine his response. One imagines that he will be more than happy to take the Mugabes in. They are old pals, after all – partners in crime. Not only would Zuma, who is himself on borrowed time, be doing the Zimbabwean army a favour, he would also be maintaining the solidarity among heads of state that has been such a feature of the post-colonial age.
But for the 93-year old Mugabe, finding a suitable retirement home will be the least of his concerns. The fervent Catholic, who went on to be a devout Marxist and leader of the struggle against white rule, only to end up a power-crazed maniac, will be seething with rage at the act of lèse-majesté perpetrated by the leader of the coup, General Constantino Chiwenga. The President-for-Life had intended passing on his leaderhip of the country to his wife, nearly four decades his junior, who was poised to enter the Cabinet as heir-apparent, much to the chagrin of those who feared that her arrival would presage their departure and a further ratcheting up of the Mugabe cult of personality.
Formerly married to Stanley Goreraza, an airforce officer, whose peculiar fate, since 2001, has been to serve as defence attaché in the Zimbabwean embassy in Beijing, Grace Mugabe originally modelled herself on Madame Mao, another fanatical seeker after power through marriage. But over the years, as the economy of Zimbabwe has descended into near-neolithic pathos, she has largely given up any pretence of concern for the welfare of ordinary people in favour of the acquisition of power and wealth for herself and her three children, two of whom are by Mugabe, the other – now manager of the family estates – by the exiled Wing Commander Goreraza.
Until Mugabe entered into his dotage, she enjoyed influence rather than direct power. But that, it seemed to the army, was about to change. For Grace, more than her nonagenarian husband, is the problem. Whereas it seems safe to assume that Mugabe will not be around for very much longer, she could be active for the next 25-30 years, and the thought of her inheriting the presidency was evidently too much for Chiwenga and his like-minded friends in the officers’ mess.
Born and raised in South Africa, Grace Mugabe is an ill-tempered woman and a natural autocrat, whose upwards spiral has caused widespread dismay even within those groupings that naturally coalesce around the presidency. It is not just that she has no obvious talent for anything other than giving orders and wasting public money (the Mugabe’s parties are legendary, with a lavishness more suited to the Arabian Nights), she is also intensely jealous of her rivals for power. Most recently, she poured poison into her husband’s ear about his vice president, 75-year-old Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was subsequently sacked as grand vizier to smooth her path to the throne.
If the concerns of the military were simply that Grace Mugabe would be an undemocratic intrusion into the national leadership, that would be one thing. Few would disagree. But it would appear that the generals are in fact equally keen to ensure that Mnangagwa takes over from the Old Man (“old “being a relative term) because he, a one-time insurgent long since used to the good life, has always been close to the top brass and could be expected to keep them in the comfort and security to which they are used.
The next few days will determine the extent to which the coup is final, or, just as likely, an accomodation, in which Mugabe agrees to make way after a suitable period for Mnangagwa, in return for a well-provided retirement, probably in the Cape, where he could spend his final days playing dominos with Zuma while raising a glass or two to the armed struggle.
But, as a way of concentrating the mind, the firing squad cannot entirely be dismissed. The generals may call Mugabe His Excellency today. But if he doesn’t play ball, and insists on passing on the reins of power to his wife, he may find some of them have itchy trigger-fingers. Shots were exchanged during the army’s advance on the capital on Tuesday night. The coup may not be as bloodless as some reports might suggest. Chiwengi knows that once you take up arms against your leader, you have to follow through. Were he to order his men to fall back and restore power to Mugabe, he would, in effect, be signing his own death warrant.
As for the people of Zimbabwe, who have endured Mugabe’s ruthless ineptitude and lust for power for the last 35 years, they will no doubt be praying that the new occupant of the presidential palace – known as the Blue Roof, with its 25 bedrooms and twin lakes – will be someone who understands the extent of his country’s poverty and the urgent need to rebuild the economy. Will they get their wish? Well, stranger things have happened. But not often and not recently.
