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Grace under fire: A first lady’s ambition cut short

(CNN)Grace Mugabe had the world at her feet, a national airline at her disposal for shopping jaunts around the world, where she stayed at luxury hotels without a care for the staggering cost. Her husband Robert Mugabe was president, and she was inching ever closer to assuming the reins of power once the 93-year-old was ready to relinquish them.

Now her fate is in the hands of her political opponents and her whereabouts unknown, and her husband remains under house arrest at the presidential palace in Harare. He was allowed a brief moment to emerge into public view Friday, attending a graduation ceremony in the capital.
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A woman on the verge so close to having her political desires fulfilled, Grace Mugabe’s future is now in turmoil.
Her woes are reminiscent of another first lady who had also nursed presidential ambitions: Isabel Peron, the third wife of Argentinian strongman Juan Peron, who was 35 years her senior.Like Isabel Peron, Grace Mugabe worked to fill the shoes of a beloved and deceased presidential spouse before her. Sally Mugabe, who died of kidney failure in 1992, was remembered for fighting alongside her husband against white rule in Zimbabwe, at one point spending six weeks in prison herself.

“I’m old enough to remember the death of Juan Peron in Argentina, and it’s the closest parallel that I can think of,” says Geoff Hill, author of “What Happens After Mugabe.”
Peron’s second wife, the charismatic Eva, or Evita, cast a shadow over Isabel Peron’s leadership aspirations, but Isabel managed to become vice president to her husband and ruled after his death for nearly two years. She was investigated for corruption and embezzlement, and calls for impeachment grew louder until she was deposed and arrested by the military. She was kept under house arrest and eventually cast into exile in Spain.

Zimbabwe’s military weren’t going to wait that long before moving on Grace Mugabe.
“It became clear as Bob became more frail that they were getting into an end game that had to be sorted out internally,” Hill says. Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa was the last obstacle standing in Grace Mugabe’s way to take over.
“When Mugabe fired Mnangagwa, and fired him from the [political Zanu-PF] party, it became quite clear there would be a coup,” he says. “That was Emersson essentially stepping in to stop Grace from taking the top job.”

‘Give me the job and I will do it very well’

“Grace Mugabe clearly wanted more power,” wrote Chipo Dendere, a postdoctoral fellow at Amherst College in the Washington Post. “In the last months, she suggested that the Zanu-PF constitution should be amended to mandate that one of the two vice presidents be a woman.”
Dendere pointed to a speech on November 5, when Grace Mugabe told a rally that she was ready to take over from her husband. “So I have said to the president: You can also leave me in charge. Give me the job and I will do it very well because I am good. I can do a great job.”
She said the First Lady has several thousand supporters, especially among women, who think she is “daring and hard working.” They argue, writes Dendere, “that these traits intimidate men in politics who resort to sexual attacks.”
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe (C), flanked by his wife Grace Mugabe (L) and daughter Bona (R), blows out the candles on a cake celebrating his 92nd birthday.

Her ambition became clearer in 2008, Dendere said, in the days leading up to a runoff election. Dubbed “Gucci Grace” for her lavish shopping sprees and fondness for designer clothing and shoes, she “traded her designer dresses for military clothing, complete with a beret and Zanu-PF’s trademark clenched fist.”
She took over the party’s youth and women’s leagues and spent the following years angling for a cabinet position, campaigning against incumbents and succeeding in eliminating prospective rivals, including in 2014, then vice-president Joice Mujuru and seven government ministers.

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