Don't Blame Grace, Mugabe Has Been Sacking Rivals Since She Was A Teenager: Hopewell Chin'ono

Award-winning Journalist and New York Times Foreign Correspondent Hopewell Chin’ono has said that people should not credit Grace Mugabe’s powers over the president for the sacking of Vice President Mnangagwa. Chin’ono argues that such analysis ignores the fact that President Robert Mugabe has been getting rid of those he deemed political threats long before Grace Mugabe was just a 15-year-old girl when Zimbabwe got its Independence in 1980.

Responding to Professor Ken Mafuka’s Letter from America – Mnangagwa: I understand perfectly!, which was a response to Chin’ono’s article titled “The Demise of the Crocodile,” Chin’ono says:

Robert Mugabe has been sacking leadership rivals before he became Zimbabwe’s first independence leader.

There was NO Grace Mugabe when the President got rid of Vashandi, Rugare Gumbo, Henry Hamadziripi, Joshua Nkomo, Edgar Tekere, Dzikamai Mavhaire the list goes on!

I would argue that Mugabe got rid of the most powerful and formidable leadership contenders before he even knew of Grace.

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Grace Mugabe was 15 years of age when Mugabe became Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister.

So I find the argument that Grace Mugabe is responsible for what is happening today, intellectually dishonest and a major failure on our part to use history in order to properly and fully understand today’s events.

Grace Mugabe is not the one who got Joice Mujuru, Emmerson Mnangagwa and many others before them fired from ZANU PF.

It was Robert Mugabe who made those decisions based on his Machiavellian style of leadership & well-known power retention schemes.

You can’t fully credit my Gardener for cutting my neighbour’s mango trees when he did so under my instruction and supervision.

My Gardener is only as culpable as Emmerson Mnangagwa was when he helped Mugabe in the sacking of Joice Mujuru and her gang, by amending the constitution and providing an excuse for Mugabe to expel them legally.

To think otherwise assumes that Robert Mugabe is sat down at home by his wife and told what to do and how to do it, that to me is unimaginative and quite a stretch.

You alluded to how the party (ZANU-PF) has become lawless, the party has always been lawless and dangerous Brother Ken.

I do not think that Ndabaningi Sithole and Rugare Gumbo were lawfully ejected during the struggle.

Neither do I think that the Gukurahundi Massacres were carried out on a lawful ruling party dictum.

All this had nothing to do with Grace Mugabe, interestingly it had everything to do with Emmerson Mnangagwa and Joice Mujuru.

They were at the heart of these commissions and yet they have suddenly seen the light and how cruel Mugabe is and how lawless ZANUPF is after their ejection?

So to call Grace Mugabe the chief strategist shows how detached we are to what is happening in ZANUPF at the moment. It is an expression of opinion as opposed to fact.

Read Chin’ono’s full response here