After a long hiatus from the international stage, Zimbabwe
made a comeback to the Miss Universe pageant, with Brooke Bruk Jackson serving
as their representative last year.
The organisation held a launch event last week which
introduced the next edition of the event, where Baloyi-Chiwenga was unveiled.
The new chairperson heaped praises on Brooke Bruk’s
performance in El Salvador last year.
The second edition, in which Brooke Bruk will crown her
successor, will begin on April 20. The top 30 will be revealed on May 18, with
the finale taking place on May 18.
An army colonel, Baloyi-Chiwenga recently married the
Vice-President Chiwenga after the latter’s bitter divorce with former model
Marry Mubaiwa.
The 46-year-old army colonel runs Style By Minnie, which
operates high-end boutiques in Harare.
Baloyi-Chiwenga is said to be one of the sharp minds in the
Zimbabwe National Army. She speaks about six languages including Mandarin,
French and Zulu.
She is also a government linguist/Chinese translator and
Chinese lecturer at Zimbabwe Staff College as well as a Mandarin for Business
lecturer at Harare Institute of Technology.
Ironically, the embattled ex-wife of Vice-President
Constantino Chiwenga, Marry Mubaiwa is the licence holder of the Miss World
Zimbabwe, and has been accused by industry mates of holding the pageant at
ransom.
She took over from Kiki Divaris as patron of Miss Zim Trust
in 2012. The last Miss World Zimbabwe event was held in 2018 and was won by
Belinda Potts.
In 2015 there was uproar over the involvement of army and
Zanu PF officials in the Miss World Zimbabwe pageant.
Critics argued that the involvement of the military in the
beauty pageant took away the glamour and glitz that is ordinarily associated
with such contests the world over.
At the pageant Chaplain General Joseph Nyakudya, an army
official, gave the opening prayer while in attendance was also the then
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services minister Jonathan Moyo, the late
and former Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive officer Karikoga Kaseke,
businessman Phillip Chiyangwa and the then Defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi,
among other guests.
The then Airforce boss and the late Perrance Shiri was also
present.
Mubaiwa is currently on trial for allegedly attempting to
murder Chiwenga while he was receiving medical treatment in South Africa for an
undisclosed ailment. Standard
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