Grace Mugabe’s greatest fear

First Lady Grace Mugabe’s greatest fear is that no one will protect her and she could be publicly humiliated after her husband dies, a South African news organisation reported today.

News24 says this was one of the points raised by Derek Matyszak of the Institute of Security Studies in Pretoria when he addressed one-and-half hour seminar entitled: Is Zimbabwe any closer to regime change?

"She once expressed the fear that when Mugabe dies she might be dragged along the tarmac behind a truck, so there are these fears and dynamics behind the scenes," Matyszak said.

The Insider has been advised that though the seminar was webcast live, it was not recorded and there is no transcript.

Grace Mugabe, who is now the secretary for Women Affairs in the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, entered politics in 2014 when she pushed out former Vice-President Joice Mujuru and has reportedly been going for her replacement Emmerson Mnangagwa.

She ostensibly leads a faction called G40 but Matyszak says the faction has fallen out of favour with President Robert Mugabe.

Mujuru told South African television last year that Mugabe was really the person behind G40.

G40 is currently under fire with one of its strongest proponents, Saviour Kasukuwere, under threat of expulsion from the party.

All the country’s 10 political provinces have expressed a vote of no confidence in him.

He is, however, said to have been spared after Mugabe argued that his expulsion could rock the party ahead of next year’s elections but he will be demoted from the powerful post of national political commissar.

The party’s politburo is still to meet to announce the official outcome.

Grace Mugabe has upset most Zimbabweans because of her extravagancy while most people are failing to make ends meet.

She is currently embroiled in a dispute over a $1.3 million diamond ring which she bought to mark her 20^th wedding anniversary but later rejected it and asked for a refund.

She is also reportedly trying to kick out more than 100 families from Arnold Farm in Mazowe.

A recent survey by African think-tank, Afrobarometer says 56 percent of Zimbabweans surveyed said their living conditions were bad with 31 percent saying they were “very bad”.

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