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Joyce Mujuru is a Zanu-PF vice-president, alongside fellow vice-president Joseph Msika and president Robert Mugabe, taking a position left vacant following the death of Simon Muzenda. This puts her in line to succeed Mugabe, if he retires in 2008.
Mujuru was born in Zimbabwe's northeastern district of Mt Darwin, a Shona from the Zezeru language group, as are Mugabe and Msika. She completed two years of secondary education when she decided to join the liberation war. She downed a helicopter with a machine gun on February 17, 1974 after refusing to flee.
- "Incredibly, I hit the machine and there was a lot of black smoke and it crashed. A big explosion followed," she was quoted as saying of the incident in which all the white occupants of the helicopter perished.
She took the nom-du-guerre Teurai Ropa (spill blood), and then rose to become one of the first women commanders in Mugabe's ZANLA forces. In 1977 she married Solomon Mujuru -- known then as Rex Nhongo -- who was deputy commander-in-chief of ZANLA.
At independence in 1980, Mujuru became the youngest cabinet minister in Mugabe's cabinet, taking the portfolio of sports, youth and recreation. She fitted secondary school in between her busy schedule after she was appointed minister.
As minister of telecommunications, she tried to stop Strive Masiyiwa from establishing his independent cellphone network Econet [1] (http://www.chico.mweb.co.za/mg/za1/24mar-news.html). On March 24, 1997 she decided to issue its second cellular telephone license to the previously unknown Zairois consortium Telecel [2] (http://www.btimes.co.za/98/1018/world/world03.htm), cutting out cellphone pioneer Strive Masiyiwa, who was given an ultimatum by the cabinet to sell his imported equipment to his rivals.
Instead, she allocated the second license to the Zairois consortium, which included her husband Solomon and President Robert Mugabe's nephew Leo.
After many legal fights, Masiyiwa won his licence in December 1997, while Telecel's was cancelled.
Solomon Mujuru
She is married to Solomon Mujuru, former MP for Chikomba. He, with the late Josiah Tongogara led the Zanla forces when Mugabe languished in jail for 10 years from 1964. Mugabe had slipped into Mozambique after his release from jail with the active support of Solomon Mujuru, who implored guerrillas, most of whom had never met Mugabe, to accept him as their leader.
- "As a result Mugabe owes (Solomon) Mujuru an eternal favour," said one Zanu-PF insider.
Solomon took over the command of the army at independence in 1980, retiring 10 years later to go into business. Popular speculation is that he owns anywhere between six and sixteen farms. But he remained an influential member of the Zanu-PF Politburo, where he clashed with Mnangagwa, long considered Mugabe's favoured heir.
This happened when Mnangagwa, then a powerful cabinet minister, thwarted Solomon's bid to buy into the multibillion- dollar Zimasco, a chrome mining and smelting concern in Zimbabwe's Midlands Province, in the mid 1990s.
In 1998 she was named among senior officials who looted the Zimbabwe War Victims Compensation Fund.
Vice-presidency
The ruling party womens league, resolved at its annual conference held in September 2004 to put forward a female candidate for the partys vice-presidency, a position left vacant following the death of Simon Muzenda.
Mugabe bowed to pressure from a ZANU-PF faction led by Mujuru's husband, General Solomon Mujuru, to give a woman the second vice-presidency post -- effectively sidelining speaker of parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa, widely seen as his favoured heir.
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