Grace Mugabe
| Grace Mugabe | |
|---|---|
.jpeg)
Mugabe in 2013
|
|
| First Lady of Zimbabwe | |
|
Assumed office 17 August 1996 |
|
| Preceded by | Sally Hayfron |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
23 July 1965 Benoni, South Africa |
| Political party | Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front |
| Spouse(s) |
Stanley Goreraza (Divorced) Robert Mugabe (1996–present) |
| Children | Russell (with Stanley) Bona (with Robert) Robert (with Robert) Chatunga (with Robert) |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Grace Mugabe (née Marufu, 23 July 1965) is the wife of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe and the First Lady of Zimbabwe from her marriage to the leader in 1996.
Grace was born in Benoni in South Africa, and her family lived in South Africa until 1970. She was previously married to Stanley Goreraza, an air force pilot, who is defence attaché at the Zimbabwe embassy in China. As secretary to the president, she became his mistress while still married to Goreraza and together they had two children, Bona, named after Mugabe's mother, and Robert Peter, Jr. The couple were married in an extravagant Catholic Mass, titled the "Wedding of the Century" by the Zimbabwe press, after the death of Mugabe's first wife, Sally Hayfron.
In 1997, Grace Mugabe gave birth to the couple's third child, Chatunga.
In 2014, Grace Mugabe was given a doctorate in sociology by the University of Zimbabwe only two months after registering at the university, although a dissertation does not exist. The degree was widely described as fraudulent. Grace Mugabe is under personal sanctions in the European Union and the United States for her role in the Mugabe regime.
Grace Mugabe was designated as head of the ZANU-PF Women's League in 2014.
In late 2014, Grace Mugabe was fiercely critical of Vice-President Joice Mujuru, who was alleged to have plotted against President Mugabe. Ultimately the accusations against Mujuru resulted in Mujuru being eliminated as a candidate to succeed Mugabe and effectively becoming an outcast within ZANU-PF by the time it held a party congress in December 2014. Meanwhile, Grace Mugabe's political prominence increased. She was nominated as head of the ZANU-PF Women's League, and delegates to the party congress approved her nomination by acclamation on 6 December 2014. In becoming head of the women's league, she also became a member of the ZANU-PF Politburo.
After observers from the European Union were barred from examining Zimbabwe's 2002 elections, the EU imposed sanctions on 20 members of the Zimbabwe leadership and then, in July, extended them to include Grace Mugabe and 51 others, banning them from travelling to participating countries and freezing any assets held there. The United States instituted similar restrictions.
...
Wikipedia