Joice Mujuru
Zimbabwean politician
Joice Runaida Mujuru (née Mugari; born 15 April 1955), also known by her nom-de-guerre Teurai Ropa Nhongo, is a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who served as Vice-president of Zimbabwe from 2004 to 2014. Previously, she had served as a government minister and as vice-president of ZANU–PF. She was married to Solomon Mujuru until his death in 2011 and was long considered a potential successor to President Robert Mugabe, but in 2014 she was denounced for allegedly plotting against Mugabe. As a result of the accusations against her, Mujuru lost both her post as vice-president and her position in the party leadership. She was expelled from the party a few months later, after which she formed the new Zimbabwe People First party.
Early life
Runaida Mugari was born in Zimbabwe's Northeastern district of Mount Darwin, a Shona from the Korekore language group. She attended a Salvation Army mission school, Howard High in Chiweshe in Mashonaland Central Province.
At eighteen years old, Mujuru was the only woman who trained in Lusaka. After completing two years of secondary education, she decided to join the Rhodesian Bush War. She is said to have downed a helicopter with a machine gun on 17 February 1974 after refusing to flee. The helicopter downing incident has been vehemently denied by War Veterans chairman, Christopher Mutsvangwa after her expulsion from the party; other ballistic experts have also questioned the possibility of shooting down a helicopter with such a light weapon as narrated on her story.
“Joice Mujuru” enters the record as zimbabwean politician. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Joice, Mujuru and Zimbabwean can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q981736. VIAF identifies the subject as 73294297. The Library of Congress control number is n2006201400. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 2004, 2014 and 2011.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joice Mujuru” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.