FIRST Lady Grace Mugabe has claimed that President Robert
Mugabe has been threatened with death if a certain person does not succeed him,
the clearest indication that Zanu PF’s succession wars are getting messy.
“We are being threatened day and night that if so and so
does not succeed Mugabe, we will kill you with guns.
“Kill us? Let’s see. Why are you not killing us?” she asked
rhetorically on Thursday at the launch of the Empower Bank and the Zimbabwe
Champions and Heroes of the Economic Empowerment Revolution (ZIMCHEER).
Grace said she and Mugabe would not bow down to such
pressure and Zanu PF had a structured way of choosing the President’s
successor.
“We must all agree that when the President says one day he
wants to leave office, then we must all agree, as a party, who will take over
and not to hold guns against each other,” she said emotionally.
“No to firing bazooka! “We are being threatened day and
night that if their preferred candidate does not take over we will be killed.
“We will not bow down to that pressure, never! “You are
going to arrest all of us and take us to prison, that’s the only way you can
rule.”
In a telling statement that revealed how seriously Mugabe
was taking such threats, Grace metaphorically said the President was sleeping
with one eye open to thwart any coup.
“Some people behave as if while they were at war, they held
two guns and fought the struggle by themselves,” she continued.
“We don’t want to hear that. We want to be free.
“This is a free Zimbabwe. The President is sleeping with
one eye open.
“I am not going to do that, I will sleep with both eyes
closed, because I have bodyguards outside, who appreciate.”
Grace warned that a coup would be dangerous for Zimbabwe,
particularly as African leaders would not recognise a leader, who came to power
through a putsch.
“They are saying they will stage a coup,” she said, without
naming anyone. No one will recognise a person who comes to power through a
coup.
“You all know that the African Union will not recognise. Sadc
will not recognise a person who comes to power through a coup and even talking
about that issue is treason.
“We are not arresting you because President Mugabe is a
person with a kind heart.
“If it was in other countries, people would have been in
prison long back.”
In the past, Grace has accused unnamed people of plotting
to kill her children.
Grace, who was accompanied by her daughter, Bona and son-in-law,
Simba Chikore, then tore into Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who was the
subject of her fury, as claims that the latter was poisoned at Mugabe’s rally
in Gwanda in August refuse to go away.
“Why would I want to kill someone appointed by my husband?
“Who is Mnangagwa?” she asked as the whole Harare
International Conference Centre fell into silence.
“What is he on this earth? He is a nobody.
“If you get to a point of lying in politics, it means you
are now clueless and if indeed you are, you should go home and rest (resign).”
Zanu PF is in the throes of a bitter factional war, which
threatens to tear the party apart, as jockeying to succeed Mugabe nears a
climax.
Two distinct factions, one said to be loyal to Mnangagwa
known as Team Lacoste and another linked to Grace known as G40, are now openly
facing off. Daily News
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