AUSTERE AUXILIA IS NO GUCCI GRACE

Zimbabwe’s new first lady has taken quietly to her new role and is more community-minded than her despised predecessor

SHE cut a cool figure sitting by her husband’s side as the world watched him ascend to power in Zimbabwe. Understated in white, her hair tied back neatly, she was a far cry from the woman whose place she’s taking as first lady of the embattled country.

Perhaps Auxilia Mnangagwa, wife of Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson “The Crocodile” Mnangagwa (75), wanted to drive home the point she isn’t stepping into the designer shoes so beloved by the former first lady of flamboyance, Grace Mugabe (52).

Austerity instead of extravagance was the theme for Auxilia’s inauguration outfit. In fact, she didn’t even splash out on new threads – she’d worn that suit to a wedding earlier in the year.

She also appears to be more concerned with helping others than helping herself. Still, time will tell whether the 54-yearold MP and former Zim spy has more in common with grabbing Gucci Grace or gracious, modest Graça Machel.

HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

Auxilia grew up in Chiweshe, a small town about 100km north of Harare, the second of five kids of parents who divorced when she was in Grade 3.

Her childhood in what was then Rho- desia was hard, she told the Zimbabwean Standard newspaper. “After school I’d fend for my brothers, collect firewood, fetch water and look for vegetables. I’d also fish in the river when it flooded and we’d sell the fish.”

Her school holidays were spent working on farms, picking cotton and soya beans, and “many other chores the baas [white farmer] would give us to do. He’d follow us on horseback or motorbike with his shotgun and a sjambok.”

It was this hardship, she said, that inspired her to promote the rights of children and access to education.

POLITICAL EDUCATION

During the country’s war for independence Auxilia and her family were forced to live in “protected villages” known as keeps, an attempt by the Rhodesian authorities to prevent people from coming into contact with guerrilla fighters.

Life in these camps has been described as hellish. Camp dwellers’ livestock was slaughtered by Rhodesian soldiers, disease was rife and soldiers would display the bodies of executed guerrillas to dissuade people from joining the uprising.

Her time in the keeps persuaded Auxilia to work for her people and at 19 she joined Zanu-PF, now Zimbabwe’s ruling party. After completing secretarial studies she started working at the ministry of manpower and development and in 1982

AGENT AUXILIA

Auxilia Mnangagwa with her husband, new Zimbabwean president Emmerson, and well-wishers after their return to the ruling party fold. joined then-prime minister Robert Mugabe’s office.

MEETING ‘THE CROCODILE’

Auxilia met Emmerson at government functions and meetings. Despite his fearsome reputation she “couldn’t resist his warmth” and said yes when “this soft, loving man” popped the question. They married in 1986. While working for Mugabe in the ’80s she was trained as a security officer by Zimbabwe’s Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), reportedly to spy on Emmerson. Auxilia has never spoken publicly about what her role in the CIO was and has denied any sinister snooping on her husband. She’s blamed the media for “twisting and misrepresenting facts to fit their own agenda” and described this time as “a dark moment in my life”.

“Emmerson proposed to me like any other man does, and it was courtship which ended in us having a happy marriage. How can one be a planted CIO in a marriage of 31 years?”

In 1997 she left the CIO to study environment and tourism at the University of Zimbabwe then furthered her studies in Switzerland. She returned to Zimbabwe in the early 2000s and worked in Zanu-PF’s finance department, rising