Grace Mugabe Presidency possible!

LAST week I highlighted the few but incisive leadership transitions that have taken place in Zanu-PF since its formation in 1963.

Those transitions were neither smooth nor broadly consensual, except for the interim appointment of Herbert Chitepo, which again reflected some stability mainly because it was considered as provisional.

Given that history, the melee around the recent ejection of Joice Mujuru and her allies, just before the December 2014 Zanu-PF congress is not surprising.

The manner in which it was discharged may be mesmerising but the exposition of the characteristic nature of such transitions in Zanu-PF was hardly unexpected.

This therefore sets the tone for the ultimate — the succession of President Robert Mugabe.

Many theorists and analysts have attempted to understand the post-Mujuru dispensation in Zanu-PF and its implications for eventual succession of President Mugabe.

While others consider the episode of Mujuru's ouster as the ultimate determinant of who will succeed President Mugabe, others posit that this eventuality is still a long way from being won or lost, by the current and known contenders, and the ones yet to emerge in the race.

My own contention is that nothing is yet clear and conclusive in Zanu-PF.

Although contenders like Emmerson Mnangagwa now occupy a pedestal that makes it easy to tip into the presidency, Zanu-PF dynamics are mysterious and indistinct.

The road to the presidency is not yet cleared for either Mnangagwa or others who are being proposed as possible contenders.

This week I want to focus on the possibility and the chances that the First Lady; Dr Grace Mugabe, has to lay claim to the throne.

Many still consider her to be peripheral and many analytical pieces seem to map her interests as purely intended for "king-making" rather than being "king".

Others also still use mathematis and empiricism to write off her chances, yet like has been in the past, political transitions in Zanu-PF have rarely been predictable and ordered in the laboratories of political science analysis.

These transitions have merely been about unpredictable "power-holding" and capacity to "horse-trade" within the mirage of intricate political constructions in the party.

Despite those that either write her off or assume her interests to be distanced from the presidency, the First Lady remains a realistic candidate.

Her chances are, however, determined by the issues and events that transpire in the next 12 months or so.

To-date, and ever since her 2014 August nomination into the leadership of the Women's League, she has managed to craft the art of "power-holding".

What's interesting is when the First Lady began to emerge in the political circles in Zanu-PF, including her nomination in August 2014; President Mugabe somehow remained dissociated from her ascendancy.

It is nearly obvious that she wouldn't have taken this trail without her husband's blessings.

It's, however, critical to note how President Mugabe handled the whole development. It was only later; way after the First Lady had become broadly acceptable in the party and by the structures, that President Mugabe emerged to "follow up" on her progress.

This calculative move was obviously about President Mugabe not wanting to appear as imposing her on the party, but it was also about "testing the waters" before he could align himself with the move.

Had she failed to establish a foothold and should the move have backfired, President Mugabe would have remained distanced and discreet.

The idea behind all this could have been to measure out her chances, not against Mujuru, but more around how much acceptance and support she could attain from the pro-Mnangagwa grouping.

It is important to note that, it was not the ordinary pro-Mnangagwa group that roped-her in into this political concoction. Instead it was a core-group that only worked with Mnangagwa for their convenience, and further saw their own interests served by convening a common cause for the First Lady and Mnangagwa.

It is therefore safe to assume that those who were instrumental in pushing her emergence cannot outrightly be considered to be Mnangagwa loyalists. They simply sided with Mnangagwa as a way of ensuring specific ends were attained, but without cemented loyalty to him.

This group cannot be assumed to have eventually offered their full loyalty to Mnangagwa even after his appointment as Vice President. Why would they do that….Mnangagwa is now where they want him to be…, near the presidency but not the president.

Aiding Mnangagwa to the vice presidency does not automatically translate to this core-group's interests in his further progression to the presidency. The core-group cannot be relied upon anymore with regard to Mnangagwa's ambitions beyond where they have helped place him to-date.

This group's support for the First Lady cannot be undermined and only assumed to be limited to her elevation only as far as being the head of the Women's League and being in the Politburo.

Those that posit the First Lady's interest as merely being about "king-making" for the sake of her own post— Mugabe interests forget to ask the important question: What guarantee does she have that those interests will be served by others, including Mnangagwa, with her being outside the presidency?

Others like the Gokwe Nembudziya legislator, Justice Mayor Wadyajena, have strategically begun the rhetoric of "Amai…all the way…", referring to the need to urge her from merely being head of the Women's League to the party and national presidency.

This is not a lone and lost voice but a political trendsetter that will over time be followed by an engulfing party-wide proclamation, only at the right time.

For the First Lady to, however, land the presidency and to sustain it, she needs as much "power accumulation" now, while President Mugabe is still "on the throne".

The presence of President Mugabe provides some measure of iconic political tinge on her, which will otherwise be limited in his absence from the presidency and the political scene.

If President Mugabe expends his remaining political term, for however, long it may be to continue to enhance his wife's political capital through strengthened "power holding", then she is destined for the top office.

Her chances therefore depend on how long the current "hand holding" by President Mugabe goes on, and how much she manages to consolidate her current and growing political sacrosanctity in Zanu-PF.

The longer President Mugabe remains in active politics, the more mileage she attains and the lesser influence other contenders realise.

We cannot seriously write-off her from the presidency and neither can we simplistically and carelessly assume her interests are distanced from that prospect.

We cannot also assume that those in the vice presidency are now at an automatic ledge to move in to succeed President Mugabe.

President Mugabe has of late indicated that the recent appointments into the vice presidency have nothing to do with the eventual succession. He still alludes to the people determining who will succeed him.

The question then is; which people, whose people and who currently has the zealous support of those people?

We are yet to see more episodes of political tensions in Zanu-PF especially around succession to President Mugabe.

Although the current turmoil is around the "Gamatox" faction, which President Mugabe alluded to last week, this however, does not seem to be the most epic battlefront.

There are possibilities of the emergence of more factions inside Zanu-PF, excluding the already dislodged Mujuru cabal, but this time around new protagonists contending for President Mugabe's position.

Should factionalism continue to evolve in this manner, then that simply plays into the First Lady's chances of landing the presidency.

We must remember that the initial elevation of the First Lady in August 2014 was on the pretext that she was the only one able to prune the party of factionalism.

That distinctive will sustain, and any future factional fighting will still see her being assigned to even more critical tasks in the party, in order to quell disunity.

Those more critical tasks may actually involve getting her into the presidency, to ensure some assumed sustainable way of unifying the party and stamping out factionalism and its vestigial loose ends.

The First Lady's potential ascendency to the presidency, although circumstantial, must never be undermined.

It's a possibility the country has to live with.