Grace spearheads Bob’s re-election campaign

A normally politics-shy person, Mugabe’s second wife has jumped into the driving seat and has joined her husband on the campaign trail across the country where she is vowing that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai would never be allowed to take over power.
Critics say Mugabe’s increasingly belligerent stance is actuated by Grace’s influence amid reports the First Lady fears loss of power by her husband could imperil her entire family.
40 years younger than her 84-year-old husband, Grace is frantically trying to whip up nationalist indignation by belligerent rhetoric that is largely devoid of any substance except empty threats.
She has traversed the whole country with her ailing husband, doling out cash, food, tractors, trucks, roofing materials and farming implements.
A disastrous public speaker, she has centred her campaign messages on her own personality and insulting her husband’s opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai.
On the campaign trail, she has told a series of lies to the hapless rural electorate, accusing the MDC of fanning violence, yet it is her husband’s party that has largely been responsible for the violence that has claimed 70 lives so far.
She has lied about the MDC’s position on land, food aid, sanctions, whites and violence, and has espoused a clumsy sense of patriotism amid a fit of rage over her husband’s impeding second electoral loss. The country is mine, it is also yours, it is not for Grace alone, she told a rent-a-crowd rally in Chivhu. I have told people that I will die for this land this time around, she quipped.
A sinister element of Mrs Mugabe’s political rise was her recent appointment as patron of a new hardline group of war veterans calling itself Mwana Wevhu (Revolutionary Council) and another one called Women Against Sanctions. Both groups have demanded the suspension of the election run-off until Western sanctions are lifted, and also want 20 per cent of the seats in Parliament.
It’s clear she can see the writing on the wall and that is why she has decided to try to restore her husband’s fortunes, MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said. But she must understand that she is not at State House by own will, but by the will of the people.