She has started her nationwide rallies … Grace Mugabe
The controversial first lady handed out 1 095kg of raincoats to rally-goers in Chiweshe last week.
Only one week ago, her husband President Robert Mugabe declared the drought a national disaster. This season’s rains have been abnormally low.
Agencies now warn that up to three million Zimbabweans or nearly one-quarter of the population will need food aid.
The raincoats were part of a long list of donations handed out by Mugabe’s 50-year-old wife, who has previously been criticised by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change for her lavish handouts.
Other items donated included tractors, rice, cooking oil, sugar and shoes, said local media and eyewitnesses at the scene of the rally.
It’s not clear where the raincoats came from.
Grace used the rally to insist that she would push her husband to work “in a wheelbarrow” if he was unable to walk. The longtime president turns 92 this month.
She said Mugabe would be Zanu PF’s sole candidate for the next elections in 2018. He will be 94 then.
Mugabe has not publicly named a successor, leading to bitter fights within his party from those angling for power.
At Friday’s rally, Grace commended both former information minister Jonathan Moyo and Zanu PF national party commissar Saviour Kasukuwere. Both are members of the Generation-40 faction of the ruling party.
G-40 has been engaged in open fights with members of an opposing faction led by Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, once seen as a clear candidate to succeed Mugabe.
His future now appears much less secure.
Post published in: Agriculture