At 19, she shot down a helicopter, she married a general at 23, became the youngest female cabinet minister at 30 and rose to the country’s number two position, in 2004, next to President Robert Mugabe. This is the story of the rise, fall and possible recovery of Joice Mujuru: politician; entrepreneur; PhD holder; a woman also known by her nom-de-guerre, Teurai Ropa (spill the blood) who now wants to unseat her former comrades in arms.
“She adds excitement and momentum to an otherwise dull political terrain dominated by a ZANU-PF factionalism chaos on one side and many weak splinter comical groupings of opposition parties and pretenders on the other side,” says political economist Maxwell Saungweme.
Mujuru’s life began with rifle in hand. She went to the bush, after two years of secondary school, to train as a guerrilla fighter in Mozambique in 1973.
Mujuru, from Mount Darwin, 99 miles from Zimbabwe’s capital Harare, rose through the ranks of ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army), the military wing of liberation movement ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union). She became one of its first women commanders.
At independence, in 1980, Mugabe appointed her the youngest cabinet minister, responsible for sports, youth and recreation. He encouraged her to finish secondary school while she learned the ropes of government.
The next three decades were fulfilling and full of power. On her way to becoming the deputy president, she held a number of ministerial portfolios.
It was her time at the telecommunications portfolio that would cement her place among ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) hardliners and make enemies with moderates like the late vice president Joshua Nkomo. She tried to deny millionaire Strive Masiyiwa, Zimbabwe’s richest man, an operating license for his mobile network Econet.
Many will never forgive her for questioning Nkomo’s mental faculties when he supported Masiyiwa. Masiyiwa’s Econet went on to win a court battle but it set back his company years. It left the government looking lumbering and out of touch.
There was talk of her becoming the first female president as she had the backing of her feared husband and kingmaker, General Solomon Mujuru. General Mujuru was killed in an inferno on August 15, 2011 at his Alamein Farm in Zimbabwe. Many believe he was a victim of ZANU-PF internal infighting.
It all turned sour in 2014 when Mugabe fired her. Comrades, who for years talked of her bringing down a helicopter with an AK-47 rifle, turned against her and the story. Mugabe’s wife, Grace, increasingly active in politics, called her a witch, thief, liar and undeserving of a place in ZANU-PF.
If anything, Mujuru is a fighter. She wants to unseat Mugabe with her new political party, Zimbabwe People First – the second PF party in the country. She believes someone should stop Mugabe’s quest to rule, in his own words, “until Jesus comes” and her party will seek to do just that. This move enraged Mugabe and his close associates who went on the attack.
Cabinet minister and propagandist, Professor Jonathan Moyo, who many call the loyal son Mugabe never had, has savaged Mujuru.
Moyo tweeted that, to call this ‘gamatox-trio’ (pseudonym given to the faction Mujuru allegedly led while in the ZANU-PF) a political party yet ZANU-PF expelled it in 2014 for factionalism is the joke of the year.
Mujuru was expelled with veterans Didymus Mutasa and Rugare Gumbo.
“Without the late General Mujuru’s name and without President Mugabe, Joice is politically nothing. She knows this as we do. The idea that Joice Mujuru can succeed where the inimitable Edgar Tekere [former liberation hero] failed is daydreaming,” says Moyo.
After 15 months of speculation and secret meetings, Mujuru confirmed her plans, launching a new political outfit in March.
“We confirm the existence of a viable home-grown inclusive political party. The unjust system that Zimbabwean masses fought against remains a noose around our necks as that [colonial] system. We are living under an unjust system. There is selective application of the law, one for the poor and the powerless, one for the rich and the powerful, one for opposition party supporters and one for ruling party supporters. Zimbabwe requires investor-friendly and market-driven policies to stimulate economic activity and in order to realize this to happen, one of the challenges that should be uprooted is corruption,” said Mujuru launching her party.
Saungweme concedes Mujuru represents change.
“She represents hope to many, and her seeming rebellion from ZANU-PF portrays her as a strong woman capable of changing things. However, an apple does not fall far from the tree. She is ZANU-PF at heart. Her veins have ZANU-PF blood. She is likely to act and behave in the manner ZANU-PF does.”
The country’s main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, welcomed Mujuru to the opposition ranks.
“Our political adversary is the faction-ridden ZANU-PF party that has ruined Zimbabwe’s economy through decades of unparalleled misgovernance, thievery and rampant corruption,” says MDC spokesperson Obert Gutu.
Mujuru’s newfound human rights rhetoric doesn’t convince everyone, especially those who suffered on her watch. This might see her party struggling as Western donors might see her as a recycled ZANU-PF leader and spoiler.
Tafadzwa Musekiwa is one of the exiled former MDC legislators. He left Zimbabwe after his life came under threat from Mugabe’s regime. He believes Mujuru is no different to her former boss.
“This Mujuru praising nonsense must just stop. I witnessed the worst violence in Mt Darwin [a region where Mujuru comes from], the violence that completely changed how I view violence and violent people. For anyone to tell me Joice is their choice is exactly the same as saying ZANU-PF is their preferred party,” said Musekiwa on his Facebook wall.
Nqobani Ndlovu, a Zimbabwean journalist, says Mujuru’s 34 years in ZANU-PF is a stain that can’t be removed.
“Shaking off her ‘dark’ past with ZANU-PF and proving to the electorate that she truly is a social democrat will make or break her,” he says.
Whatever happens, Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections will be a thriller and will certainly make history. Mujuru could be Zimbabwe’s first female president; Tsvangirai could become the first Zimbabwean opposition leader to unseat Mugabe; and for the man himself, Mugabe, he could become the first 94-year-old to win an election.

ZIMBABWE-POLITICS-MUJURU

Will It Make  Or Break Her?

It is just over 20 years since I journeyed to Blantyre to see a rare sight on this continent – a former head of state on trial before his own people.
The trial opened on a crisp winter’s morning, in the shadow of Mount Soche, at the High Court in Blantyre. At sundown you can watch clouds roll down the slopes of Mount Soche like a huge fluffy blanket – the people of Blantyre call it the ‘chip’ – one of the great sights of Africa.
The only thing in danger of going down on this winter’s morning, in 1995, was the remnants of a regime that had ruled Malawi for decades.
Hastings Kamuzu Banda was to stand trial for the Mwanza incident on May 18, 1983, even though he never made it to court as his lawyers deemed him too infirm.
Police caught four leading politicians, who were trying to flee Malawi, at Mwanza near the border with Tanzania. They pounded them to death with sledgehammers, put them back into their car and pushed it over a cliff to make it look like an accident. The vehicle caught on a tree and the only damage investigators found was a broken indicator light. The former president, his right hand man, John Tembo, and Cecilia Kadzamira, were charged with the killings.
Banda was one of Africa’s notorious big men – although, like most, he wasn’t very tall – who ruled with a lion’s tail fly-whisk in one hand with the other clenched in an iron fist. Under his homburg hat and three-piece English style suits, he saw himself as above his people and, like the British colonialists before him, believed his word was law. Women couldn’t wear short skirts; men with long hair and beards were shorn of their offending locks at the airport. The Jehovah’s Witnesses were killed, imprisoned and exiled, according to human rights reports.
Criticism was unwelcome, to say the least. Everyone, from journalists to poets, could be locked up without trial. In 1987, Goodluck Mhango, a veterinarian who had nothing to do with politics, was imprisoned merely because his journalist brother overseas had written an article criticizing the government. He was beaten up severely and spent more than four years behind bars.
One journalist I interviewed in Blantyre was held for more than 20 years in a cell that used to flood in the rainy season. He was diabetic and the paucity of prison food worsened this into glaucoma, sending him blind. Twenty years later, I interviewed him in freedom in his glorious garden in Blantyre that he could hear, smell, but not see. He recounted the story that got him in trouble about the former nurse from Zimbabwe, Kadzamira, who was Banda’s companion and on the state house payroll as an official hostess.
“All I did was question what an official hostess was,” says the former journalist with a smile.
I nodded my head in sympathy and wondered how difficult a letter from the editor, or a right of reply, was for the high and mighty to comprehend.
All of this madness in a country, now known as the warm heart of Africa, then known as the land where silence rules.
This silence was breaking when I first arrived in Malawi to report in January 1995, months after Banda lost elections to President Bakili Muluzi. On the way from the airport, I engaged the taxi driver in political talk – a practise a lot of journalists carry out when they hit the ground running. As we talked, he told me in Banda’s day it was difficult to start a taxi business.
“In those days, the police would be at your house asking where you got the foreign currency from to import the vehicle. In fact, if you wanted to talk politics I would have dropped you off at the side of the road!” says the driver as we hurtled into the city.
Banda, Kadzamira and Tembo were acquitted for lack of evidence. Banda died at home in bed in 1997. At least we were free to report the stories, even though, I am told, Malawi has veered back towards its cold and silent past.

The Cold Silent Heart Of Africa

George Weah, the Liberian soccer legend-turned- politician, barrels out onto the sports field dressed in an electric-blue jersey. Flanked by his entourage, tussling photographers and journalists, the towering 48 year old rolls forth with the Ballon d’Or, the trophy he claimed in 1995 while playing for AC Milan, hoisted on his broad shoulders. The crowd roars and his long-time political rival, Liberia’s formidable commander-in-chief President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, follows behind dressed in a black and white lapa suit.
Weah and Johnson Sirleaf deliver muffled messages about reconciliation and the president’s column-like security guard, wearing aviator sunglasses, raises the glinting solid-gold ball into the overcast sky. Weah, the only African to win the prize, did so during the heat of Liberia’s civil war that raged for 14 years and left 250,000 dead, the nation’s infrastructure in ruins and its people deeply traumatized. The soccer star hauled the prize back from his home in Florida in the United States, where he spends at least half of his time, as a symbol of peace.
Retired and current soccer celebrities from across the continent and government officials take to the field for a friendly match organized by Weah, who last December accepted his appointment by Johnson Sirleaf as peace ambassador. Weah is now the face of the government’s latest attempt to reconcile a nation that remains deeply divided a decade after the gunfire ceased and former president Charles Taylor went into exile. But among the spectators it is clear, reconciliation or not, their main purpose is to see Weah, or King George as he is known to Liberians.
<div id="attachment_31208" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31208" class="size-medium wp-image-31208" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0623-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0623-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0623-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0623-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0623.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Monrovia, Liberia &#8211; June 22, 2013: Football game organized by George Weah at SKD. (Photograph by Morgana Wingard).</div>
After a failed attempt at the presidency in 2005 and the vice presidency in 2011, Weah is now tasked with helping drive forward the stalled process to reunite the nation. Many Liberians remain cynical about the reconciliation process after a controversial Truth and Reconciliation Commission, whose findings and recommendations were sidelined because of legal issues and the indictment of those among the political establishment. This is a major challenge that Weah has to confront.
A new 18-year reconciliation roadmap has been launched placing an emphasis on restorative, rather than retributive, justice.
The reconciliation process suffered a blow last year when peace activist Leymah Gbowee, who was also the head of a previous initiative, resigned after criticizing Johnson Sirleaf of nepotism and her failure to address present-day issues such as corruption. In a statement, Gbowee referred to “differences in opinion on the pathway for national healing and reconciliation” as her reason for stepping down.
When asked whether he is concerned about the reasons for Gbowee’s resignation, Weah says: “She took a long time to notice that.”
Weah’s critics say that he is not capable of the role and that he was appointed to appease young Liberians who are angry with Johnson Sirleaf’s government.
Critics such as Dan Saryee, a Liberian democracy and rights activist, says that Weah lacks a vision for national reconciliation. “Reconciliation is not just about having a sports jamboree. Sports do not address the reconciliation concerns of a farmer in Grand Kru, Gbarpolu or a fisherman in River Cess or Bassa.”
But Weah is confident that his previous work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador during the civil conflict, his role in helping encourage former fighters and child soldiers to disarm and his rapport with ordinary Liberians was the reason he was chosen by the president and why he is the best man for the job.
“I was the right person, because of the love that people have for me, and the way I can persuade people. I accepted it because this is the country I love. I want to see the country peaceful and stable,” Weah tells FORBES AFRICA in an exclusive interview at his residence in Rehab, a suburb on the outskirts of Monrovia.
In the coming months, Weah will embark on a ‘Listening Tour’ across 16 counties to talk to Liberians about their grievances and also facilitate dialogue between tribes that have been in conflict in the past, before forwarding his findings to the government. A similar exercise was undertaken by Gbowee during her time as head of the reconciliation initiative.
Weah is seen by many of his supporters as a man of the masses, the less-than-a-dollar-a-day Liberians who eke out an existence in a society that still remains deeply polarized economically.
Born and raised by his grandmother in a slum in Bushrod Island, and discovered and nurtured by President Samuel Doe, who was brutally executed at the beginning of the war, Weah represents an impossible dream, but nevertheless a dream for Liberians, who until the end of the conflict in 2003, had little to hope for.
“His is the only face we see to redeem us,” says Samuel Kun, a 28-year-old sociology student at the University of Liberia.
“Weah is from the ghetto so he knows what we are going through and he can [empathize] with us.
If he’s our president I’m sure things can change, it might not be constant but I’m sure he will do his best.”
Weah’s home in Monrovia is nothing like the one in which he grew up. Concertina wire crowns the high maroon wall that surrounds his compound and is manned by guards wearing blue polo shirts and sports caps that read ‘security’.
I interview Weah in a lounge room overlooking a tiled pool, and fitted with the trappings of masculine affluence—a wooden bar, a pool table, a flat-screen TV, modern black couches backed by a window that looks out onto three luxury cars. Weah wears a crème shirt with jeans and a fitted charcoal suit jacket and holds his pair of reading glasses in his hand. I ask whether his loafers are Gucci.
“That’s hard work, not government money,” he responds sharply.
Regardless of Weah’s flamboyant lifestyle, he is seen as one of the few Liberians to have earned his riches the honest way—through hard work, success, talent and a bit of good luck—in a country where the political class and those in power are still largely viewed as a league of rogues. In 2012, Transparency International named Liberia and Mongolia as the most corrupt countries in the world in its Global Corruption Barometer.
Many of Weah’s supporters are deeply suspicious of the government and its commitment to reconciliation and are concerned this could be a trap for the political leader, who is tipped to be among the leading presidential candidates in 2017. Even within Weah’s party, the decision was met with many dissenting opinions.
Some opposition leaders and analysts have argued that Johnson Sirleaf is setting Weah up for failure to destroy his political future.
But Weah dismisses claims that he is being used as a political pawn and says that he will step down if he thinks the government lacks commitment to reconciliation and is attempting to silence him.
“We have to monitor their actions […] I’m not going to sit aside because I am the peace ambassador if the government does things that aren’t right. I think by now you should know I have character.”
<div id="attachment_31207" style="width: 310px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-31207" class="size-medium wp-image-31207" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/app/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0138-300x200.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="200" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0138-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0138-600x400.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0138-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/20130622-wingard-0138.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />Monrovia, Liberia &#8211; June 22, 2013: Football game organized by George Weah at SKD. (Photograph by Morgana Wingard).</div>
He also says the debate over the Truth and Reconciliation Commission should be reopened.
Weah says he is aware of the challenges ahead and the level of resentment and dissatisfaction among Liberians, many of whom who do not have an affordable life. These are challenges that are beyond the ethnic divisions and human rights abuses that characterized the brutal civil war. Less than two 2% of Liberians have access to pipe borne water, a mere 0.58% of people have access to public electricity, and 76% of the population live on less than a dollar a day.
“Peace for me is equitable distribution of the national wealth; peace for me means true justice,” says Weah.
Weah is optimistic about the future of the reconciliation process but some argue his entry into the 2014 senatorial race could get in the way.
“If he does run as a senator it means that his role within the reconciliation roadmap may be diminished. Weah could use this platform to mobilize more votes,” says Edward Mulbah, the senior technical advisor at the Liberia Peacebuilding Office, the body charged with organizing reconciliation activities.
But for now, Weah says there is no conflict between his political ambitions and role as peace ambassador.
The 2011 elections that Weah participated in underlined the urgent need for reconciliation. The Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) boycotted the run-off claiming they had won the first round, a claim that was reinforced by a letter by the National Elections Commission declaring them winners. That body later claimed the letter was a mistake. The day before the elections, they staged a demonstration during which police fired live rounds and killed at least one demonstrator and injured others. Johnson Sirleaf won by 90.6 % of the vote due to a low voter turnout, that the International Crisis Group (ICG) argues was due to fears of escalating violence. The Carter Center election monitoring team deemed the elections free and fair with some irregularities. This was the second time Weah had cried foul during an election.
“I still maintain that there was no transparency, there was no true democracy,” claims Weah.
Analysts predict that Weah will have a landslide victory in the Montserrado senatorial race, the most populous county in Liberia and one that is his party’s political stronghold.
If he succeeds in next year’s race, Weah will become senator of a county that is home to over 1.5 million people, 70% of who are estimated to live in slums like the one he grew up in. Weah’s childhood community of Geblah Town underlines the challenges that lie ahead. I travel to the cramped community, along rain-slicked, potholed roads, passing people drawing filthy water from square concrete wells and drainage overflowing with waste. There I meet Philip Sayon Jr, a 20-year-old CDC supporter and university student. Sayon is optimistic that things will change if Weah becomes president.
“He loves his Liberian people; he knows the soil from which he came from; he passed a lot of difficulties. He will give the people a chance,” he says.
While Weah is yet to make his real debut in the political arena, the expectations of his performance are huge.   FL

Tag: Politician

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Will It Make Or Break Her?

The Cold Silent Heart Of Africa

Chasing A THROUGH BALL TO POWER