The Insider

Minister of State for Land Reform Flora Bhuka was allegedly marginalised less than a year after her appointment after she conducted a land audit that revealed widespread corruption in the fast-track programme and named several prominent supporters of President Robert Mugabe who had multiple farms.

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Olivia Muchena has been in government for more than a decade and has served in one capacity or another. A strong proponent of land reform, Muchena is still considered by the United States as a moderate behind Vice-President Joice Mujuru. It was reportedly because of Mujuru’s backing that she was elected chair of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front. There are 14 cables on her. Here they are:

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Flora Bhuka was one of the youngest legislators when she was appointed Minister of State for Land Reform in August 2002, according to a short biography prepared by the United States embassy in Harare.

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Flora Bhuka, who was one of the youngest Members of Parliament when he was elected for Gokwe East in 2000, was elevated to Minister of State in charge of Land Reform when President Robert Mugabe reshuffled his cabinet in August 2002.

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The election of Women’s Affairs Minister Olivia Muchena as leader of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front Women’s League was a clear indication that Vice President Joice Mujuru was a strong force within ZANU-PF, if not stronger than Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa’s faction.

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Zimbabweans still had confidence in the judicial system with 64 percent saying that they had a lot of trust in the country’s courts despite the so-called breakdown in the rule of law.

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A cabinet reshuffle on 10 February 2004 which saw only one minister being dismissed was viewed by United States embassy officials as an “anti-climatic disappointment” which suggested “immobility and paralysis to the extreme”.

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Olivia Muchena was a respected technocrat with political savvy and a sensible proponent of indigenisation and economic liberation, according to the United States embassy in Harare.

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President Robert Mugabe, who turned 89 today, said yesterday that he had survived this long because of God. “It’s him, our creator, who is responsible for the fact that I am 89,” he told guests at State House.

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