Grace Mugabe Biography

Background

Grace was born on July 23, 1965, in Benoni, South Africa, and was the fourth of five children born to migrant parents. At the age of five, she moved to Chivhu in then-Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to live with her mother, while her father remained in South Africa to work. She attended primary school in Chivhu and secondary school at Kriste Mambo High School in Manicaland Province.

After completing a secretarial course, she joined the Office of the President and Cabinet as a typist and secretary in the mid-1980s. During this time, she was married to Stanley Goreraza, a pilot with the Air Force of Zimbabwe, and they had a son named Russell in 1984. While still married to Goreraza, she began an affair with President Robert Mugabe, whose first wife, Sally, was terminally ill. Grace and Robert Mugabe had two children out of wedlock—Bona (born in 1988 or 1990) and Robert Peter Jr. (born in 1992)—before formalizing their relationship. Following Sally Mugabe's death in 1992, the couple married in a lavish ceremony in 1996 and subsequently had a third child, Chatunga Bellarmine, in 1997.

Education

Grace Mugabe enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts in English program at the University of London in 1996 but was deregistered in 2004 after failing to complete the degree. She later studied the Chinese language at Renmin University of China from 2007 to 2011, graduating despite acknowledging a limited proficiency in the language.

In September 2014, she was awarded a PhD in sociology from the University of Zimbabwe, capped by her husband who was the university's chancellor. The degree attracted severe criticism and fraud allegations because she had only enrolled two months prior and her thesis was not immediately published. An investigation into the expedited degree led to the 2018 arrest of the university's vice-chancellor on charges of abuse of office.

Political Career

Grace Mugabe formally entered politics in 2014 upon her nomination and subsequent election as the head of the ZANU-PF Women's League, a position that also placed her in the party's Politburo. She became a central figure in the Generation 40 (G40) political faction and used her influence to target political rivals. She was instrumental in the expulsion of Vice President Joice Mujuru in 2014 and Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa in 2017.

Following Mnangagwa's dismissal, she was endorsed for the vice presidency, but a military takeover in November 2017 ended her political ascent. The ZANU-PF Central Committee subsequently expelled Grace and several of her allies from the party, and Robert Mugabe resigned from the presidency. Since then, she has maintained a low political profile.

Business Interests and Philanthropy

Grace Mugabe owns Gushungo Holdings, an enterprise that acquired significant tracts of fertile farmland in northern Zimbabwe during the country's land reform program. A prominent subsidiary of this company is Alpha Omega Dairy, a multi-million-dollar project that became a major player in the local dairy market.

In the philanthropic sector, she founded the Grace Mugabe Children's Home (also known as Mazowe Children's Home), an orphanage built with Chinese funding to support vulnerable children. She also established the Amai Grace Mugabe Junior School in Mazowe. Supporters have praised her charitable contributions, while critics have alleged that some of her projects were funded through questionable means or utilized for political leverage.

Controversies and Legal Issues

Mugabe's tenure was accompanied by accusations of living an extravagant lifestyle amid severe national economic hardship, earning her the media moniker "Gucci Grace". Her activities led the European Union and the United States to place her on sanctions lists, citing her involvement in democratic subversion and controversial land seizures.

She has been implicated in multiple assault cases. In 2009, she allegedly assaulted a photographer in Hong Kong but avoided prosecution due to diplomatic immunity. In 2017, she was accused of assaulting South African model Gabriella Engels in Johannesburg. The South African government initially granted her diplomatic immunity, but the South Gauteng High Court overturned this decision in 2018, ruling it unconstitutional.

Further controversies involving Mugabe include allegations of forcibly evicting families to annex land in Mazowe, taking control of state-owned water resources, externalizing funds to acquire overseas properties, and using her status to facilitate diamond and ivory smuggling.

Grace Mugabe is ranked among the top 50 richest people in Zimbabwe.