Ray Nkosi | Former First Lady Grace Mugabe has spoken out that she never wanted to be Vice President.

Grace speaks for the first time since her husband was ousted in a coup last November.

Speaking to the Sunday Times Grace said, “I didn’t want even to be vice-president,” she said, adding that she had favoured former defence minister Sydney Sekeramayi as Mugabe’s successor.”

Grace refutes claims that President Emmerson Mnangagwa was fired at the time so she could take over.

Grace told the reporters she had advised her husband to resign to avoid violence. “I asked him to put pen to paper and resign. We didn’t want bloodshed,” she said.

Mugabe claimed “many people were killed” during the military action, an assertion that is not supported by any evidence.

“It was a coup d’etat. It was truly a military takeover. I don’t know what you would want to call it,” he said. “I feel betrayed by Mnangagwa whom I nurtured and saved from being hanged in prison during the liberation struggle.”