I can’t believe he is gone &#8211; albeit decades overdue &#8211; and I find it difficult to imagine Zimbabwe without him.
If ever there is a case study for the perils of clinging too long to power in Africa, Robert Gabriel Mugabe is it; a cautionary tale for every leader trying to die in office.
If he had stepped down after his second, or even third term &#8211; about 1995, I reckon &#8211; he would have been revered in the way a true leader should. There would have been museums and archives set up his honor, an annual Mugabe lecture by the finest brains on the planet. There would have been scholarships in his name and he would have been on advisory panels along with Jimmy Carter and the rest of the world’s sage elders. Like the late president of Botswana, Ketumile Masire, who got it right after two terms, Mugabe could have sat on his farm waiting for the wise and the good to beat a path to his door seeking counsel.
Instead Mugabe spent the most of the last two years being vilified, spat at, mocked and howled down by the mob. I saw him at the World Economic Forum in May, in Durban, and it made me sick to my guts; the poor man could hardly walk let alone keep his eyes open. I blame those around him too who kept him on the throne in the interests of their paycheques.
It was a sadder sight when I compared it to the first time I interviewed Mugabe, all clipped, groomed and sharp suited at State House in Harare, way back in April 1994 with the autumn sun glinting through the window and lawnmowers humming across the carpet of green grass outside. Those were halcyon days for Mugabe, respect among his educated people &#8211; with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa &#8211; was in abundance. Any criticism of the big man was met with reproving stares.
“That is our president,” people used to say.
On this warm autumn day Mugabe was at his schoolmasterly sharpest, always ready to take advantage of any gap in knowledge.
“Who told you that?” he used to say if you really caught him out, trying to dismiss you as if you were a sixth former. Remember, if he hadn’t bid for power, liberating his country,  he could have ended his working days as a colonial headmaster.
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As the years wore on I interviewed him many times and he rarely disappointed even if some of his quotes, even in the sharp days, were bizarre.
I remember a day at the Harare Book Fair, in 1995, when Mugabe went off on a rant against gays and lesbians displaying their books on the stalls. He called them the association of sodomists and sexual perverts. When he came out of the fair I asked him on camera what he had against gay people.
“I do not believe men should have children through wombs,” says Mugabe. It underlined the old man’s vehemence when he had a bee in his bonnet.
Once we dashed to an impromptu roadside speech by Mugabe to a large crowd of Zanu-PF Women&#8217;s League in Samora Machel, the main road through Harare. We arrived in a rush and my cameraman hastily set up his tripod and fiddled with the camera. All the while Mugabe was watching us out of the corner of his eye as he ranted on against gays in ChiShona, his mother tongue. As soon as the cameraman switched on and looked down the lens, Mugabe switched to English.
“Let them be gay in Europe, let them be gay in America, they will be sad people here,” says Mugabe with a dismissive wave of his arms. He knew that soundbite would fly around the world on the new wires; and it did.
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This is one reason why Mugabe survived so long, he was a wily old fox (even the cleverest foxes couldn’t have dreamed up some of the big man’s dodges) who knew how to manipulate divide and rule. Woe betide anyone who upset him. He sent a couple of my colleagues to the torture chamber and one of them died very young as a result. More than a few of his opponents disappeared and tens of thousands were killed in Matabeleland in the Gukurahundi of the early 80s.
All of this he brushed off with his trademark arrogance. One summer night, I pushed a microphone under his nose as he walked away from a state function and asked him why he was sheltering Haile Mariam Mengistu &#8211; the former president who is wanted for the deaths of many thousands of his fellow Ethiopians &#8211; who lives in luxury in Harare.
“Why can’t we give shelter to a legitimate refugee?” says Mugabe on the night. Well, Bob, there are refugees and then there are fugitives from justice.
As Mugabe walked away to his Mercedes he grumbled to one of his flunkies that it was the reason he didn’t like talking to whites (that must have been me) because they asked stupid questions. Arrogance told him that the latter was true even though the previous question was, pardon me, as true as Bob. That sense of self-importance that dates back to the days when his indulgent mother let him read books instead of herd cattle with his brothers back in his rural home in Zvimba.
Now it has all come home to roost. Everyone has turned on Mugabe: his comrades, his people and even those who worshipped him in better days. What a sad end to what could have been one of the most shining political careers in Africa. He won’t be remembered as a fox; more as a skunk.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe spent 10 years in prison, years in exile, years suffering headaches of building a new post-colonial society amid cold war politics and threats from apartheid South Africa across the border. I have one last question for him before he swans off into an uncertain retirement: Did you come so far for so little?

Bye bye Bob – did you come so far for so little?

Nobody is safe from the rages of Zimbabwe’s First Lady, “<a href="https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2014/09/21/grace-mugabes-doctorate-uz-remains-mum/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr</a>. Amai” Grace Mugabe. There was the young <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/zimbabwe/grace-mugabe-split-my-head-open-claims-joburg-woman-10788605" target="_blank" rel="noopener">South African model</a> Grace lashed with extension cords. Ninety-three-year-old President Robert Mugabe’s longtime and usually trusted ally <a href="https://www.africa-confidential.com/article/id/12164/Mugabe_drops_the_crocodile" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Emmerson Mnangagwa</a>, was next in the firing line: he was sacked because his supporters allegedly <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/an-ordinary-man-after-all-mugabe-fires-right-hand-man-mnangagwa-20171106" target="_blank" rel="noopener">booed</a> her at a rally.
The consequences of her vengeance may have <a href="http://nehandaradio.com/2017/11/14/live-updates-situation-zimbabwe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">led to a coup</a> headed by Zimbabwe’s army chief General Constantino Chiwenga, who is commonly perceived to be Mnangagwa’s protégé. But <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/who-is-emmerson-mnangagwa/4115612.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ex-freedom fighter Mnangagwa</a> has his own presidential aspirations.
Mnangagwa has been exiled from the party in which he has served since he was a teenager. But he is not just skulking in the political wilderness. On arrival in South Africa he issued a statement calling those who wanted him out <a href="https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/full-statement-im-not-going-anywhere-zanu-pf-is-not-your-personal-property-mnangagwa-tells-mugabe-20171108" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“minnows”</a>. He promised to control his party “very soon” and urged his supporters to register to vote in the national elections next July.
As if to back Mnangagwa, on November 13 General Chiwenga announced that he and his officers could not allow the “counter-revolutionary infiltrators”, implied to be behind Grace Mugabe, to <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/11/13/zimbabwe-army-chief-warns-mugabes-party-military-may-intervene/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">continue their purges</a>.
<h2>Factions and purges</h2>
Chiwenga <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41992351" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> that the armed forces must ensure all party members attend the extraordinary Zanu-PF congress next month with “equal opportunity to exercise their democratic rights”. He flashed back through Zanu-PF’s history of factionalism, reminding his listeners that although the military “will not hesitate to step in” it has never “usurped power”. Chiwenga promised to defuse all the differences “amicably and in the ruling party’s closet”.
Although this airbrushed more than it <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02589001.2014.956499" target="_blank" rel="noopener">revealed</a> about the party’s rough patches when leadership vacuums appeared, the statement appeared more as a cautionary note than a clarion call to arms. It’s not often a coup is announced before it starts; but once in motion direction – and history – can change. Grace Mugabe may have unleashed a perfect storm and her own undoing.
All the “shenanigans” that have inspired the generals to consider a coup have set the stage for an extraordinary Zanu-PF congress this December instead of in the expected 2019: that is, before rather than after the July 2018 national elections.
This suggests some people were in a hurry to settle the succession issues for the president, who is now showing every one of his 93 years. Maybe Robert Mugabe won’t rule until he is <a href="http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2114&amp;freedownload=1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">100-years-old</a>. If not, and <a href="https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/mugabes-zimbabwe-has-an-angry-population-and-a-potentially-violentfuture/article36934238/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">members of his family</a> or party wanted to keep their dynasties alive, they had to work quickly lest some similarly inclined contenders are in their way.
These contenders include Mnangagwa and a slew of his <a href="http://www.pindula.co.zw/Lacoste,_Zanu-PF_Faction" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“Lacoste” faction</a> consisting of war veterans and the odd financial liberal. The best-known of these is Patrick Chinamasa. This former finance minister tried to convince the world’s bankers he could pull Zimbabwe <a href="https://theconversation.com/zimbabwes-financial-system-is-living-on-borrowed-time-and-borrowed-money-86159" target="_blank" rel="noopener">out of the fire</a>. He was demoted to control cyberspace and then fired. Perhaps he may make a comeback in the wake of the semi-coup.
The pro-Grace faction includes the members of <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2016/03/18/what-does-g40-want/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Generation 40, or “G-40”</a>. Many are well over 40. But in Robert Mugabe’s shadow they appear young, as does the 52-year-old First Lady. Without a base in the liberation-war cohort, they resorted to working with the Mugabe couple: sometimes their ideology appears radical, espousing indigenous economics and more land to the tillers.
If the history of their best-known member – the current Minister of Higher Education <a href="https://www.pindula.co.zw/Jonathan_Moyo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jonathan Moyo</a> – is indicative, however, they are pragmatic; or less politely put, opportunist.
But with Grace Mugabe sans Robert, they would have to muster inordinate amounts of patience and manipulation to steer the sinking ship to the shores of stable statehood and incorporate yet <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Search-Elusive-Zimbabwean-Dream-Autobiography/dp/0994707924" target="_blank" rel="noopener">younger generations</a> who cut their political teeth as Robert Mugabe’s rule faltered.
<h2>Perfidious ‘saviours’</h2>
Yet the possible plan for the upcoming congress – to create a third vice-president – appears not to move far beyond the cold hands of the old. <a href="https://www.news24.com/Tags/People/phelekezela_mphoko" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Phelekezela Mphoko</a> would be pushed to third vice-president status. Grace would be the second vice-president.
The current defence minister, <a href="https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2017/11/10/mnangagwas-great-escape-details/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Sydney Sekeramayi</a> would be first vice-president and so, next in line for the presidential palace. He is a quiet but no less tarnished member of the Zanu-PF old guard; especially when one remembers the massacre of thousands of Ndebele people during the <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?id=zi-tWekXbD8C&amp;pg=PA19&amp;lpg=PA19&amp;dq=%22the+early+rain+which+washes+away+the+chaff+before+the+spring+rains%22&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=dWX2SIUj7r&amp;sig=0aDLpmmQfN93e_RNJuKcBmGGEYI&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwioi-joj6LWAhWE7hoKHRF_C7wQ6AEIOTAD#v=onepage&amp;q=%22the%20early%20rain%20which%20washes%20away%20the%20chaff%20before%20the%20spring%20rains%22&amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gukurahundi</a>.
When performing the calculus necessary to rectify Zimbabwe’s graceless imbalances, remember that Mnangagwa was perhaps the key architect of the nearly genocidal Gukurahundi, now chronicled in archival detail in historian Stuart Doran’s <a href="https://www.sithatha.com/books" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu, and the Quest for Supremacy</a>. Among the scores implicated therein are the British, condemned by Hazel Cameron, another meticulous archivist, as exercising <a href="https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2017/zimbabwe-cameron/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">“wilful blindness”</a> during what Robert Mugabe has dismissed as a “moment of madness”.
Perhaps it’s no surprise, then, that many are suspicious of Mnangagwa’s <a href="http://africanarguments.org/2017/11/08/zimbabwe-the-uks-misguided-role-in-the-rise-and-fall-of-mnangagwa/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">relationship</a> with the UK. Many suspect he has been swimming with perfidious Albion for a very, very long time.
Those waters, in the shadow of Mugabe’s heritage, will take a few more generations of hard political work to clear. It hardly seems propitious that a coup, and the same generation that has ruled since 1980, starts it off.
&#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/david-b-moore-285501" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">David B. Moore</a>, Professor of Development Studies, University of Johannesburg and originally published in <a href="https://theconversation.com/africa" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>
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Tag: Grace Mugabe

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Bye bye Bob – did you come so far for so little?

What’s next for embattled Zimbabwe?