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Grace looks regal and pensive, Bona looks downcast and President Robert Mugabe… well, let’s just say he doesn’t look like he’s enjoying himself.
This picture of the first family of Zimbabwe just before a state dinner in Harare this week has got tongues wagging.
It was taken by Daily News photographer Annie Mpalume on Wednesday evening, according to local watchdog @ZimMediaReview.
The occasion was a dinner at State House for visiting Namibian president Hage Geingob. In the photograph, the Mugabe family appear to be listening to a speaker, though that hasn’t been confirmed.
“Happy people: The Mugabes before hosting dinner at State House for Namibia president Geingob,” tweeted @ZimMediaReview.
“Why the long faces? What a miserable bunch the Gushungos!” said @lashiasn, referring to Mugabe’s totem.
“Is it me or Dr Amai is starting to look like her husband?” asked another Zimbabwean.
During the dinner, Geingob allegedly said that Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is now Zimbabwe’s vice president, trained a team from Namibia in 1990 on elections, according to the privately-owned Newsday.
The paper quoted Geingob as telling Mugabe: “You told us how they (the former colonial masters) would frustrate us, block our manifestos and do a lot of things.”
“For two weeks, I was here and you gave us then (Justice) minister Mnangagwa and the military, who trained us on the elections. When we went back it was difficult, but we won.”
Newsday said Geingob’s comments were evidence of Mnangagwa and the army’s “roles in micro-managing general elections and engineering President Robert Mugabe’s successive, but contentious, electoral victories”.
