Grace Mugabe remain evasive on her possible presidential ambitions

First Lady Grace Mugabe has chosen to remain evasive on her possible presidential ambitions although her husband President Robert Mugabe told South African journalist that his wife harboured no such dreams.

Mugabe emphatically said Grace does not have those ambitions and she has accepted the post of being secretary for women's affairs and she has got her own charity to care for.

Mr Mugabe said his wife was happy with the roles she currently holds, as Zanu-PF's women's' league leader, owner of a large dairy farm and patron of a children's' orphanage.

"She doesn't have those ambitions. No, I don't think so," he said. "She has accepted the post of being secretary for women's affairs and she has got her own charity to care for."

But when Grace was quizzed over the same issue, she said she does not know without elaborating further, fuelling speculation that she had ambitious to succeed her 91 year old husband.

Asked if she would like to be president one day, Grace Mugabe replied: "I don't know, I don't know!" Addressing reports in the Zimbabwean media that she has been gravely ill and might even have been suffering from colon cancer, Mrs Mugabe joked: "I'm dead! I'm a corpse."

Speculation about Mrs Mugabe's political ambitions was sparked last year when she was confirmed as the leader of the Zanu-PF Womens' League, a position which automatically gave her a place in the ruling party politburo.