For years, a group of Zimbabwean villagers resisted efforts by the wife of former President Robert Mugabe to force them off a farm near the capital, enduring police raids and the demolition of their homes.

Now that the country’s president for 37 years has resigned, the farmers say they are able to move more freely in a blow to Grace Mugabe’s efforts to expand her landholdings.

They also say that they feel safe for the first time in years, and they hope that things will change under the incoming president Emmerson Mnangagwa

Grace Mugabe, whose ambitions to succeed her husband as president triggered a military takeover, has attracted criticism in the past for lavish shopping trips.

The former first lady set up a school and runs a dairy farm in Mazowe, projects that she said would boost Zimbabwe’s devastated economy but were widely seen as an attempt to build a business empire for personal gain.

Those ambitions are now in question after her 93-year-old husband resigned Tuesday following pressure from the military, parliament and street protesters, ending nearly four decades in power that saw Zimbabwe slide into economic ruin.