Ray Nkosi | First Lady Grace Mugabe last week used the term “corpse” to refer to her husband.

Mrs Mugabe’s labelling of her husband using the death tag has fuelled a fire with people now feeling licensed to freely use the term following Grace’s precedent.

Wrote the PDP party leader and former Finance Minister, Tendai Biti:

@BitiTendai In actual fact what said is true coz we have been voting for this moving corpse for a long time.

— Greisha (@greisha74) February 20, 2017

Furthermore, yesterday Google search data showed a sharp rise in requests for the term: “Mugabe corpse.” The latest record shows searches peaked up to a 76 note this weekend alone, following Mrs Mugabe’s words that in 2018 people will still vote in their millions for her husband. The weekend achievement is now the highest level of all searches since June 2008, the latter which was influenced by newspaper reports around the time of the elections in that year.