AT 18, she left school to fight in the liberation struggle under the nom de guerre “Spill Blood”. At 24, she became the youngest minister in Robert Mugabe’s first post-independence cabinet.
By 50, she was vice-president and a favourite to succeed Mugabe as leader of Zimbabwe, the once-wealthy southern African nation.
Now, at 61, cast out of the ruling party, she is hoping to lead a rebellion against the ageing autocrat, a man she called “father” for four decades.
The passage of Joice Mujuru from revolutionary hero and life-long Mugabe comrade to opposition leader encapsulates the political turmoil shaking the country. As the world’s oldest president, now 92, approaches the end of his life, a thinly veiled succession battle is taking place both within the ruling Zanu-PF party and outside.
The political battle has been compounded by Zimbabwe’s dire economic situation, which has driven protesters on to the streets demanding jobs and opportunity. Drought has brought hunger to an estimated 4m people and the government does not have enough US dollars — in effect the only currency — to pay civil servants.
This month, Harare is supposed to issue “bond notes”, a new currency devised as a last-ditch attempt to get money flowing in an economy that has virtually ground to a halt. Many Zimbabweans fear a return to the madcap hyperinflationary days of 2008, when price rises were measured in the sextillions and an egg cost more than 1bn Zimbabwean dollars.
Officially, Mujuru, the tough talking leader of the newly formed People First party, is preparing for elections in 2018 for which Mugabe has pledged to stand again.
“Zimbabwe’s people want to change the government through the rightful constitutional process,” she said in an interview.
Unofficially, with signs that Mugabe is increasingly frail and a surge in protests despite police brutality, it is not certain whether the centre can hold that long.
“One wouldn’t really be sure whether we’ll get to 2018 because some of it goes with nature,” is how Mujuru puts it delicately. “Because our man is quite old, he is quite sick and the situation is very volatile.”
Ibbo Mandaza, a political analyst and former senior member of Zanu-PF, says: “It’s the endgame for Mugabe. The question is whether there’s a political and economic explosion or whether Mugabe goes first.”
Still, it is far from certain whether Mujuru will be the one to benefit from Mugabe’s eventual demise.
She may be associated too closely with the man in whose image Zimbabwe has been shaped. Asked why she stuck with him — even as his tactics turned divisive, violent and ultimately ruinous — she says: “It was respect. When I joined I was a young girl. I grew up looking up to these people.”
Working with Mugabe, she says, was “hard”. “He is a headmaster. And you know what a headmaster does? He does his things by a whip.”
If fear and respect kept her loyal for 40 years, it was rumours that she was trying to shunt Mugabe that led to her downfall. When Mujuru’s husband, party stalwart Solomon Mujuru, died in suspicious circumstances in 2011, stories started circulating that Mujuru was aiming for the top job.
Mugabe’s younger wife, Grace — who also has succession in her sights — publicly accused Mujuru of using witchcraft to harm her husband. Mujuru was duly expelled from the party in 2014.
Now, all she can do is distance herself from her long association with authoritarian rule. “There were issues that I used to question,” she says.
If Mujuru is ever to be president, she will need to rally an opposition every bit as fractured and incoherent as Zanu PF.
“She and her party are untested, that’s the bottom line,” says Piers Pigou, an analyst at the International Crisis Group.
Mujuru’s new party is one of at least three main opposition groups, including the Movement for Democratic Change of Morgan Tsvangirai — a veteran opposition leader who lost credibility by serving as prime minister in an ill-fated coalition government.
The real action, in any case, may be taking place outside traditional political structures. Street protests have been organised on social media by “hashtag groups” such as #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka.
“The formal parties are not leading the protests. They are trying to catch up,” says Mandaza.
Mujuru is seeking to talk to such groups, which, she says, need a political base if they are to organise effectively.
“There are a lot of terrible things that the people of Zimbabwe have swallowed when they shouldn’t have,” she says.
For decades steeped in the “terrible things” she now condemns, Mujuru is calling time.
