Opinion / Columnist
Can someone stop Grace Mugabe?
25 Dec 2014 at 07:50hrs | Views
2014 has been one of the most eventful years in terms of Zimbabwean politics, but, unfortunately, not in a positive and progressive sense, as has become the norm in this country. It has been a year of vainglorious tumult. All because of the Grace Mugabe factor.
The Grace Mugabe factor has not been a plus, but a big minus.The whole world has watched disbelievingly the First Lady's unladylike conduct. A First Lady should be a calming, steadying influence, not a force of disruption. The level of intrigue and wilfulness cannot enhance her in the eyes of the public.
Yesterday, we carried a lead story with the headline Grace eyes Mazowe seat.
We thought she was going to slow down after bagging the Zanu PF Women's League top post, but no, she is relentless.
From a political non-entity, she could now be the second most powerful — if not the most powerful — person in Zimbabwe.
No fair-minded person begrudges anyone's fair and merited rise, but in her case it has not been like that.
To the people, the appearance or perception is that she is using and abusing her proximity to the President as his wife to demand and get whatever she wants. That is what has eased her meteoric rise.
Her word, it appears, is Mugabe's command. There is everything unsavoury about this. She demands her pound of flesh and gets it pronto.
She has snooped into other people's affairs with impunity, making public allegations about the private lives of her objects of hate like former Vice-President Joice Mujuru and ex-Zanu PF Mashonaland East chairperson Ray Kaukonde, literally hounding them out of office.
Her latest victim, it appears, is former Justice deputy minister Fortune Chasi, sacked this week at her public instigation.
Speaking at her Mazowe property in August, Grace accused Chasi of "hating the First Family for no reason".
"I must be open and honest. In this constituency, we have a new MP, I don't know him personally, but his name is Chasi and he is a problem. He is stressing me a lot, andishungurudza zvisingaite (he has given me so much grief)," she said.
Should a First Lady stoop that low to personalise issues? This imperious attitude is most frightening.
Those who have been urging and egging her on like Jonathan Moyo and Oppah Muchinguri could now be thinking twice as her intractability comes to the fore more and more. If she can make such a public show of anger, what more in private?
As if that was not enough, now she wants Chasi's
Mazowe South National Assembly seat so as to ease herself into eligibility for the Cabinet post she clearly craves for.
Someone should stop Grace before she does grave damage to the Zimbabwean body politic. People in a hurry to make a mark like her do that.
Unbridled ambition is dangerous.
The Grace Mugabe factor has not been a plus, but a big minus.The whole world has watched disbelievingly the First Lady's unladylike conduct. A First Lady should be a calming, steadying influence, not a force of disruption. The level of intrigue and wilfulness cannot enhance her in the eyes of the public.
Yesterday, we carried a lead story with the headline Grace eyes Mazowe seat.
We thought she was going to slow down after bagging the Zanu PF Women's League top post, but no, she is relentless.
From a political non-entity, she could now be the second most powerful — if not the most powerful — person in Zimbabwe.
No fair-minded person begrudges anyone's fair and merited rise, but in her case it has not been like that.
To the people, the appearance or perception is that she is using and abusing her proximity to the President as his wife to demand and get whatever she wants. That is what has eased her meteoric rise.
Her word, it appears, is Mugabe's command. There is everything unsavoury about this. She demands her pound of flesh and gets it pronto.
She has snooped into other people's affairs with impunity, making public allegations about the private lives of her objects of hate like former Vice-President Joice Mujuru and ex-Zanu PF Mashonaland East chairperson Ray Kaukonde, literally hounding them out of office.
Speaking at her Mazowe property in August, Grace accused Chasi of "hating the First Family for no reason".
"I must be open and honest. In this constituency, we have a new MP, I don't know him personally, but his name is Chasi and he is a problem. He is stressing me a lot, andishungurudza zvisingaite (he has given me so much grief)," she said.
Should a First Lady stoop that low to personalise issues? This imperious attitude is most frightening.
Those who have been urging and egging her on like Jonathan Moyo and Oppah Muchinguri could now be thinking twice as her intractability comes to the fore more and more. If she can make such a public show of anger, what more in private?
As if that was not enough, now she wants Chasi's
Mazowe South National Assembly seat so as to ease herself into eligibility for the Cabinet post she clearly craves for.
Someone should stop Grace before she does grave damage to the Zimbabwean body politic. People in a hurry to make a mark like her do that.
Unbridled ambition is dangerous.
Source - NewsDay
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