Morgan Tsvangirai appointed Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister

In an extraordinary ceremony in Harare yesterday, long-term tyrant Robert Mugabe swore in his biggest enemy Morgan Tsvangirai as Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister. The deal got the go-ahead last week after months of negotiations over power sharing and a disputed presidential election that saw Mugabe steal victory earlier in the year. While many observers believe Tsvangirai is dancing with the devil, the new Prime Minister knows he will have more power to change the system from the inside than from the outside.

The swearing-in ceremony began with the pair shaking hands. Then Tsvangirai raised his right hand and pledged an oath where he promised to be faithful to Zimbabwe, observe its laws and serve it well. The two rival leaders then signed papers and shook hands again to complete a grim-faced encounter. Two deputy prime ministers were also sworn in. They were Thokozani Khupe, Tsvangirai’s deputy and Arthur Mutambara, the leader of a breakaway faction from Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party.

But outwardly Mugabe remains the master and immediately used his power to prevent the new Prime Minister from getting promised air time on Zimbabwean state TV after taking the oath. Nevertheless, the day belonged to Morgan Tsvangirai. After the ceremony was complete, Tsvangirai was quick to thank his supporters. He addressed an ecstatic 10,000 strong crowd at the Harare Agricultural Show Grounds and laid out his priorities for the restoration of democracy. These included the release of political prisoners, tackling the humanitarian crisis, especially the nation’s chronic cholera epidemic, and stabilising an economy that has led to 94 percent unemployment and a worthless national currency worthless. The Zimbabwean people "face many challenges but we are brave and resourceful," he said. "By uniting as a nation and a people we can succeed.”

What Tsvangirai did not mention is what he must have given away to get some power from Mugabe. The British Government is among many who doubt the workability of the new arrangement. The main concern is the extent of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party control over the machinery of government and the security services. This became immediately apparent in the television incident as Tsvangirai was prevented from doing a national address after taking the oath. Lord Malloch Brown, the foreign office minister responsible for Africa, said "We're sceptical but we've got to try and help this work."

Tsvangirai also felt the need to re-assure the sceptics. On the eve of his swearing-in he said the doubters needed to understand why he accepted the post and what he thought were the challenges of transition. "We have made this decision and we made it without being forced. We want our colleagues in the country and outside the country to approach it from that perspective,” he said. “It is our decision. Let history be the judge of this decision.”

But he also cautioned that it would take time to rebuild the country. His MDC party has been given the key ministries of finance and as well as co-sharing home affairs and health after the four month long haggling over cabinet positions. Geoffrey Hawker, an Africa expert at Macquarie University in Australia, told Al Jazeera he does not expect the gamble to succeed though he admitted Tsvangirai had little choice but to accept the terms. "He's been outside the tent for such a long time ... his supporters are growing very dispirited," Hawker said. "I don't have any doubt at all that Mugabe is going to bide his time and see if he can cut him off, render him powerless ... so that Mugabe remains in control”.

There are also genuine questions whether Mugabe holds the reins of control at all. In June 2008, there were reports that a Joint Operations Command (JOC) had taken de facto power leaving Mugabe to be a figurehead. The most powerful figure in the junta is General Constantine Chiwenga, Zimbabwe's overall military chief. Chiwenga has been suspiciously quiet in the run-up to Tsvangirai’s accession to power. He was last heard from in January when the Angolan press reported him saying his troops would fight off any international peacekeeping force that might be sent to the country.

While Mugabe keeps the outward reins on power, his influence is likely to diminish as new actors take to the Zimbabwean stage. How Tsvangirai deals with the JOC and the unpredictable Chiwenga will prove the key challenge. He will need the full support of his party and key foreign actors including the UK Government. The detractors are right to be sceptical and Mugabe has form. But today's event is a good symbolic start towards the healing of Zimbabwe.

Mugabe replaced by junta as Zimbabwe plunges further into despair

A Zimbabwean court has overruled a police move to ban opposition rallies in advance of the forthcoming presidential run-off election between Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. The decision came after police denied authorisation last week to Tsvangirai’s MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) party to stage rallies in Zimbabwean townships on the specious grounds of ‘assassination threats’. The MDC then filed papers with the High Court in Harare. On Saturday an MDC lawyer announced that the court had ordered the rallies be allowed and that the police should not interrupt them.

This is one of rare pieces of good news for the MDC as it faces massive hurdles to overcome Mugabe’s state apparatus in the 27 June election. Tsvangirai was arrested twice last week; most recently on Friday when he was stopped at a roadblock as he was on his way to a regularly scheduled rally. He was taken to a police station and was released after 2½ hours. In both arrests Tsvangirai was accused by police of threatening public security by addressing a gathering without prior authorisation. This low-level harassment has impacted the entire campaign since Tsvangirai returned to the country three weeks ago. “We've noticed that it's going to be a common trend in this campaign,” said his spokesman George Sibotshiwe. “Obviously the government…are trying to prevent him from going about his campaign freely and peacefully.”

Tsvangirai and his party have been victims of systematic violence since the first election in March. A scathing new report from Human Rights Watch called “Bullets for Each of You” (pdf) now presents compelling evidence to support the obvious conclusion that the campaign is aimed at ensuring Mugabe wins the run-off election. The violence has claimed thousands of victims as both national and local government authorities systematically and methodically targets both MDC activists and the party's perceived supporters.

The violence has been particularly concentrated in former rural strongholds of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF). These areas turned their back on their traditional party to vote for the Tsvangirai and the MDC in the parliamentary and first-round presidential elections. In government and top military circles the campaign has been called “Operation Where Did You Put Your Cross?” The administration has been using independence war veterans to beat, torture and mutilate people as well as burn down their homes for “voting incorrectly” in the first election.

HRW now say that if current conditions are maintained, there is no possibility of a credible, free and fair poll. “Time has nearly run out for Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU),” it says, “to make the necessary political interventions to end the violence and ensure a free and fair vote.” They say the violence is orchestrated at the highest levels of government (known as “Joint Operations Command”) which includes senior ZANU-PF officials as well as the heads of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, police, prison services, and the Central Intelligence Organisation.

The report also confirms the report of a “senior western diplomat” that the Joint Operations Command (JOC) has taken de facto power in Zimbabwe reducing Mugabe to a mere figurehead. The unnamed source told Britain’s Daily Telegraph last week that a small circle of "securocrats", who sit atop the JOC committee, are now in day-to-day charge of the country. The most powerful figures in the new junta are General Constantine Chiwenga, the overall military chief; followed by police commissioner Augustine Chihuri and prison service commander General Paradzai Zimondi. The source said Mugabe remains a useful figurehead to parade in front of African leaders but had no real power left. "This is a military coup by stealth," he said. "There are no tanks on people's lawns, but the Joint Operations Command runs this country."

The absence of tanks on lawns does not disguise the fact that the country is in deep crisis. Zimbabwe is an economic as well as political shambles. The currency has depreciated by about 84 percent since the central bank floated it in early May after years of an official peg. On Thursday the Zimbabwean dollar plunged to a new record low, trading at an average 1 billion to the US dollar. The rapid weakening of the currency was caused by inflation expectations and a huge demand for hard currencies. The latest move triggered further massive price increases. Prices of basic goods, most of which are now imported, have gone up sharply since the disputed March 29 election. A loaf of bread cost Z$15 million before the polls but now costs about Z$600 million. And the army has warned off its population of change occurring any time soon. “If you vote for MDC in the presidential runoff election,” said soldiers addressing villagers at one meeting, “you have seen the bullets, we have enough for each one of you, so beware.”

Mengistu sentenced to death in absentia

Ethiopia has sentenced to death in absentia former dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam. The country’s Supreme Court upheld a conviction of Mengistu and 11 of his aides on 211 counts of genocide, homicide, illegal imprisonment and illegal property seizure. The 71 year old Mengistu ruled Ethiopia between 1974 and 1991 and now lives in exile as a guest of fellow dictator Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Mengistu’s regime was marked by one of the most systematic uses of mass murder by a state ever witnessed in Africa.

His twelve-year trial came to a head in January 2007 when he received a life sentence for the torture and killing of thousands during his 17 year reign. Witnesses told the court that family members who went to collect the bodies of their loved ones were asked to pay for the bullets that killed them, and evidence included torture videos. The prosecution appealed the sentence saying it was not commensurate with the crimes he committed. Yesterday the Supreme Court agreed saying “Crimes committed by Mengistu and his co-defendants by killing an emperor and burying him under a toilet is unheard of in the annals of human history”.

Tens of thousands of people died during a period of Mengistu's 17-year rule known as the Red Terror. Mengistu grew up under the shadow of Ethiopia’s long-term emperor Haile Selassie. Selassie was enormously respected internationally and was instrumental in the creation of the Organisation of African Unity in 1963. But at home, his regime was under increasing pressure. In 1972, a famine in the north-eastern region of Wollo killed 80,000 people and the oil crisis of the following year also hit Ethiopia hard. Together with a series of military mutinies, these events were instrumental in destabilising Selassie’s regime.

In 1974, a growing opposition movement coalesced into a 120 member military group called the Coordinating Committee of the Armed Forces, Police, and Territorial Army that soon came to be called the Derg (Amharic for "committee" or "council"). The Derg elected Major Mengistu Haile Mariam chairman and immediately wrung concessions from the emperor which saw an effective transfer of power. In September the Derg formally deposed Selassie and secretly killed him and the Patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox church in the months that followed. The Derg named itself as the country’s ruling body under the chairmanship of an outsider, Lieutenant General Aman Mikael Andom.

Andom didn’t last long and neither did any of his immediate successors. After three years of violent internal power struggles, Mengistu declared himself Derg leader in February 1977. He set about consolidating his power and eliminated all of his remaining rivals in a campaign that became known as the “Red Terror”. Thousands died in the streets of the capital and other cities in the following two years. Under his leadership, the Derg promoted the “Ye-Itiopia Hibretesebawinet” (Ethiopian Socialism). The concept was embodied in slogans such as "self-reliance," "the dignity of labour," and "the supremacy of the common good."

Mengistu flourished in the paranoid atmosphere of the Cold War. Under his leadership Ethiopia became the main African client of the Soviet bloc, and received massive shipments of arms to fight insurgent movements in the Ogaden and Eritrea. Another half a million civilians died in the aftermath of the 1984 famine (which inspired Band Aid). Mengistu initially tried to hide the extent of the famine from the world and then used the disaster as a pretext to forcibly relocate hundreds of thousands of villagers from rebel-held northern Ethiopia to areas in the south.

Mengistu’s regime quickly unravelled after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The Eritrean opposition led a coalition of regional and ethnic rebel groups known as the Ethiopian people's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) which overwhelmed the Derg and took the capital Addis Ababa. Mengistu fled to Harare where he was warmly welcomed by Mugabe. In 1992 the new government established a Special Prosecutor's Office (SPO) to investigate the widespread crimes committed during the Derg period. In 1997 the SPO charged five thousand people with genocide and war crimes, of whom over half, including Mengistu, were charged in absentia. Two years later, Human Rights Watch unsuccessfully called for his arrest when he travelled to South Africa for medical treatment.

Mengistu is unlikely to come to justice unless Mugabe loses next month’s run-off election. Zimbabwe has consistently refused to extradite Mengistu since he fled there in 1991. And after the Ethiopian court handed down its original life term last year, Mugabe reiterated his position, saying, "Comrade Mengistu still remains a special guest". Mugabe has found a useful role for his “special guest” making him a consultant to his secret police the CIO (Central Intelligence Organisation). As a Zimbabwean opposition group put it, “No doubt the former dictator found the income useful and the CIO could benefit from his wide experience in suppressing dissent.”

Zimbabwe elections underway

Long queues have already formed outside polling stations in Zimbabwe which opened at 7am this morning. For the next 12 hours, the country goes to the polls for presidential, parliamentary, senatorial and local government elections. The presidential election is the key vote and the state of the country’s economy under longtime president Robert Mugabe is likely to the decisive issue. Food shortages have helped drive prices higher and inflation topped 100,000 percent in January. Zimbabwe’s collapse in foreign currency earnings is partially the result of Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms to give to landless blacks.

This election represents the biggest challenge yet to the 84 year old Mugabe who has led his country since independence in 1980. Mugabe has no intention of stepping aside and many are predicting a violent outcome. Gabriel Shumba, a former political prisoner and executive director of the South Africa-based Zimbabwe Exiles Forum, says the security forces are threatening a coup if Mugabe loses the election. But Shumba also believes many people have reached breaking point. "The people are ready to say enough is enough," he said. "We have had three elections that have been blatantly stolen, so tension is very, very high."

Mugabe’s opponents this weekend are former labour leader Morgan Tsvangirai, 56, and his ex-finance minister Simba Makoni, 58. A second round will be held within three weeks if none of the candidates wins more than 50 percent. Tsvangirai is an old adversary of Mugabe having run against him in the 2002 election. He won 42 percent of the presidential vote to Mugabe's 56 percent amid violence and claims of vote-rigging as large numbers of citizens in urban areas were prevented from voting. This year’s three-way contest looks more more unpredictable to call.

Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change has accused the electoral commission of printing 3 million more ballots than there are registered voters and of keeping the voters' roll in disarray. Tsvangirai relies on urban support and his MDC won 24 of the 25 seats in Harare and Bulawayo, the country's two biggest cities, in 2005’s parliamentary elections. He will benefit most from the expected split in the ZANU-PF vote between Mugabe and Makoni.

Simba Makoni is also in confident mood going into the election. A cabinet minister between 2000 and 2002; he quit the ruling ZANU-PF party to mount his challenge against Mugabe and predicted he would win over 70 per cent of the vote. He now says his chances "are very good" and said his final tally should be "more than" his initial prediction. "I feel good, I voted for the best candidate, I voted for Simba Makoni," he told reporters after he voted this morning in the capital Harare. Mugabe has been rattled by his candidacy from within the party. "He is like a frog trying to inflate itself up to the size of an ox," said Mugabe about Makoni. "It will burst."

Meanwhile Robert Mugabe's own support remains strong in the Shona-dominated rural north of the country. There, his policy of seizing white-owned farms and redistributing them to black subsistence farmers has proved popular despite it pushing the country into recession. But Mugabe’s biggest advantage is incumbency and use of the state machine. He has dominated the press and airwaves and the stench of corruption refuses to go away. The opposition has revealed more than nine million paper ballots were printed for Zimbabwe's 5.9 million voters, while another 600,000 special ballots were produced for only 20,000 diplomats and soldiers stationed abroad.

Many are convinced that this year’s result has already been rigged. Earlier this month, the government banned election observers from western countries and most foreign media from monitoring the polls. No reliable opinion polls were conducted during the campaign, although state media has predicted Mugabe would triumph with 57 percent of the vote and avoid the need for the run-off election three weeks later. This would clearly be the worst outcome for Zimbabwe. The country has the world’s highest rate of inflation at a staggering 100,580 percent and four people in every five are unemployed.

Zimbabwe bans the West from monitoring election

Zimbabwe has released a list of international organisations and countries accredited to observe elections later this month – and the US, most of the EU and Australia have all been excluded. Zimbabwe's Foreign Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi announced last week the EU and US would not be invited. Instead, Robert Mugabe’s government has invited 47 teams of monitors from regional groupings such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the AU as well as from countries including China, Russia and Iran with whom Mugabe has relatively good relations. Zimbabwe goes to the polls on 29 March for presidential and parliamentary elections.

The international institutions invited to monitor the elections include the Non-Aligned Movement, the Africa, Caribbean and Pacific group of states, the Caribbean Community, the Association of South East Asian Nations, the Arab Maghreb Union, the Community of Portuguese Speaking (Lusophone) countries and the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development. Congress of South African Trade Unions spokesman Patrick Craven said he welcomed the news that at least some international bodies would be invited but wanted more action. "We remain sceptical about the conditions that have not been properly and sufficiently rendered conducive for all parties to campaign freely,” he said.

The first team of election observers from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has already arrived in the country. The government-run Herald newspaper said 50 observers are already in the capital Harare with their numbers expected to grow substantially by polling day. Tanki Mothae, the director of SADC's defence and security department acknowledged they were there at the invitation of the Zimbabwean government, however he added: “more importantly we are here because Zimbabwe is a member state so we need to take ownership of these elections.”

The EU raised concerns yesterday about the fairness of the elections, noting that European observers had not been invited to monitor the vote. In a statement released by foreign ministers in Brussels, they said the European Council was “very concerned” about the humanitarian, political and economic situation in Zimbabwe and conditions on the ground. They urged President Robert Mugabe to respect international standards and warned that failure to do so would “endanger the holding of free and fair parliamentary and presidential elections.” Europe imposed visa bans and asset freezes on Mugabe and his hundred top officials after his land distribution and disputed re-election in 2002.

Zimbabwe’s ambassador to South Africa Simon Moyo said the West was waging a "virulent and vicious" smear campaign over its lack of observer status aided by the South African media. He said the country’s detractors were "trumpeting British falsehoods" about the election process. "It is therefore disheartening but not surprising that certain sections of the media, unfortunately including the SA Broadcasting Corporation, have chosen to ignore the facts obtaining on the ground,” he said. "Much of the recent criticism is certainly not out of ignorance of the facts, but out of sheer malice.”

Nevertheless the fact remains that Zimbabwe's economy continues to shrink amid rocketing inflation, shortages of basic food supplies and collapsing public services. The World Health Organization says Zimbabwe has the world’s shortest life expectancy (37 years for men and 34 for women). It also has the greatest percentage of orphans (about 25 per cent according to UNICEF) and the worst annual inflation rate (1,281 per cent as of February 2008). Foreign aid and investment have dried up in seven years of political and economic turmoil. Robert Mugabe blames the EU and US sanctions for his country’s predicament. But he has not allowed any meaningful opposition against him. His forces regularly jails, harasses and violent beats up political opponents. He won the 2002 election only after arresting his opponent for treason.

Mugabe has now ruled Zimbabwe for 28 years. The Economist calls him “a near-parody of an African dictator” who sports “a Hitleresque moustache” and who “waves his fists at campaign rallies, runs into crowds punching the air and spits personal abuse at his opponents”. Yet they also say his opponents have consistently underestimated him. Now 84 years old, he still works long hours, and is sharper minded than most of his many opponents. With a strong party machine backing him and the tacit support of Africa, he can afford to thumb his nose at the US and Europe. It is now increasingly likely Mugabe will die in power.

Malawi and Mugabe

Malawi’s President Bingu wa Mutharika has come under fire from opposition leaders for a $120m maize export deal with Zimbabwe. Malawian opposition leaders accused Mutharika at weekend rallies of exporting the country's maize stocks to Zimbabwe "virtually for free" to prop up the embattled Mugabe regime. Malawi Democratic Party (MDP) president Kamlepo Kalua suggested the reason why: He said Mutharika's wife was Zimbabwean and her family had a farm in Zimbabwe. He said the deal jeopardised poverty-stricken Malawi's own food security.

Kalua also said the President was violating international trade rules by paying for the maize it was exporting to Zimbabwe. "The government has taken $300m from the Reserve Bank of Malawi to pay the National Food Reserve Authority for the maize it is exporting to Zimbabwe," Kalua said. Kalua was addressing a rally alongside former president Bakili Muluzi. Muluzi handpicked Mutharika as his successor following the end of his official two five-year terms in 2004 but is now touring the country drumming up support for third tilt when the presidential elections occur in 2009.

Malawi was settled by Bantu tribes in the 16th century. Malawi is probably a corruption of Maravi. Maravi was a Bantu state established the state of around Lake Malawi whose culture flourished for 300 years. It extended into stretches now belonging to Zambia and Mozambique. Through the coast of Mozambique, the Maravi traded ivory, iron, and slaves with the Portuguese and Arabs. In the middle of the 19th century, they were destroyed by two invasions: from the south came the Ngoni, who fled from the Zulu Kingdom in South Africa, and from the north came Muslim slave traders, who decimated and depopulated the region.

The first significant Western contact was the arrival of David Livingstone along the north shore of the lake in 1859. Livingston witnessed the slavery at first hand and estimated that 19,000 Malawian slaves were exported from Zanzibar each year. Several Scottish Presbyterian churches established missions in his wake. They were followed by a British consul in 1993 who was accredited to the "Kings and Chiefs of Central Africa”. This fiction didn’t last long. By 1891, the British established direct rule with the British Central Africa Protectorate. In 1907 the name was changed to Nyasaland (Nyasa is the Chiyao word for "lake").

The history of Nyasaland was marked with many resistance struggles. A growing European and American educated African elite became politically active. They set up the Nyasaland African Congress (NAC) in 1944. In 1958, Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda returned to Malawi after a long exile in the US. He assumed leadership of the NAC, which later became the Malawi Congress Party (MCP). Banda was imprisoned for political activities but was released in 1960 to participate in a constitutional conference in London. A year later the MCP won an overwhelming electoral victory. Banda became Prime Minister in 1963 and the British link was dissolved a year later. The new country was renamed Malawi.

Banda turned the new nation into a one party state and declared himself president for life in 1971. Hastings Kamuzu Banda would rule for over 30 years. Externally he was mostly viewed as a benign but eccentric leader. He dressed in his English-style three-piece suits, matching handkerchiefs and carried a fly-whisk. In Malawi itself views on him ranged from a cult-like devotion to fear. Banda outlawed long hair and beards for men and banned kissing in public. Towards the end of his reign, political unrest spread under pressure from Malawi church groups and the international community.

His reign was brought to an end by a 1993 referendum where the people voted overwhelmingly for multi-party democracy. Bandu and his MCP were soundly defeated in elections a year later. Bakili Muluzi was installed President as head of a coalition government. Muluzi won two terms of office but was unable to change the constitution to run a third time. And so in 2004, Muluzi reluctantly endorsed former party ally Bingu wa Mutharika for president which he won in a disputed election with just 36 per cent of the vote.

But when Mutharika resigned from the party a year later, Muluzi “apologised” to the country for picking him. The power struggle has continued since then. Mutharika sacked Coalition partners who threatened to impeach him. Last year the vice-president was arrested on charges of plotting to assassinate the president. In October 2006, the 72 year old Mutharika announced he would seek re-election in 2009 after the Malawi Constitutional Court cleared him of any imminent impeachment threat in parliament.

Malawi remains one of the poorest countries in Africa. The EU funds most Malawi government activities including food imports and anti-retroviral drugs to treat HIV. But Mutharika earned the wrath of the EU after he named a multi-million dollar EU-funded highway after Mugabe. The Robert Mugabe Highway links landlocked Malawi with Mozambique’s Indian ocean ports.

At the highway’s lavish opening ceremony surrounded by tight security to deter protests, Mutharika hailed Mugabe as a "true democrat” and “son of Africa". The Malawi government says the naming was in gratitude for Zimbabwe's job opportunities for Malawian workers. Kamlepo Kalua also said it would be inappropriate to honour the Zimbabwean leader personally "It would be a serious oversight to decorate and honour a leader who is classified as an outright dictator," he said.

Mugabe to stay on until 2010

Zimbabwe’s ruling party has backed a proposal to extend Robert Mugabe’s leadership by another two years. Delegates at PF-Zanu’s annual conference have approved a plan to postpone the next presidential election from 2008 until 2010. The news is unlikely to be well received by Mugabe’s many critics who say he has ruined what was one of Africa's most developed economies. The long-term president had said he would retire at the next election. However delegates said there should be no debate on succeeding the president, because there were no vacancies.

The move has yet to be endorsed by the party's central committee and parliament. But these are seen as formalities given PF-Zanu’s parliamentary majority. A party committee chairman, Elliot Manyika, told the annual conference: "The committee reaffirms the leadership of President Robert Mugabe as the leader of the party.” His call was backed up by the youth and women’s’ wing of the party. Oppah Muchinguri, the women's league chairwoman, said Mugabe's continued reign was the only way they would be safe. However opposition politicians say Mugabe is buying time while his party decides on a candidate in the next election.

Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said this is part of Mugabe’s plan to die in office. “Zanu PF must be stopped now if Zimbabwe is to be saved from the jaws of this tyranny,” he said. The MDC is the most credible opposition movement in Zimbabwe. Led by trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai, it won 57 seats in the 2000 parliamentary election compared to PF-Zanu’s 62. Tsvangarai then lost the 2002 presidential election to Mugabe with widespread allegations of vote-rigging and corruption. With Tsvangirai continuing to call for international sanctions against Zimbabwe, the MDC lost ground in the 2005 parliamentary election picking up only 42 seats.

Robert Mugabe has been the only president of Zimbabwe since it became independent in 1980. He was born in 1924 in what was then white Rhodesia and he was raised by Catholic missionaries. He went to South Africa to study at Fort Hare University. Based in the semi-independent bantustan of Ciskei, Fort Hare was the only tertiary education establishment open to blacks in the apartheid era. Here Mugabe met many future black African leaders such as Zambia’s Kenneth Kaunda and Tanzania’s Julius Nyrere.

Mugabe returned to Rhodesia in 1960 and joined Joshua Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu). Nkomo was to become Mugabe great rival for power among the black population in the next 30 years. Barely three years after joining Nkomo, Mugabe left to form his own party the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu). The split was mostly on ethnic grounds with Mugabe leading the Shona majority (85%) while Nkomo leading the smaller Ndebele tribe (15%). Both men were jailed by Ian Smith’s apartheid government and spent ten years in prison without trial.

When they were released in 1974 they both fled the country to continue the resistance. Nkomo went to Zambia, Mugabe to Mozambique. The civil war they raged paralysed the Rhodesian government. Smith installed a puppet government under Abel Muzerawa in 1978 but it lacked credibility with the black participants. Britain finally brought the parties to the negotiating table in 1979 and hammered out the Lancaster House agreement. A ceasefire was agreed and parliamentary elections were called for 1980. But the main stumbling block was land reform. Eventually the British and US governments underwrote a fund to buy land from willing white settlers for reallocation to blacks.

Joshua Nkomo was favourite to win the 1980 election due to his enormous personal popularity. But Zanu played the tribal card and won. Nkomo declined the ceremonial post of President. He was appointed to the cabinet, but was accused of plotting a coup two years later. His passport was seized and he was restricted to his Bulawayo home before fleeing the country. Mugabe strengthened his hold on power and launched a brutal crackdown on Zapu supporters not dissimilar to tactics employed in the past against enemies of white rule.
Mugabe abolished the role of prime minister in 1987 and awarded all the powers of that role to himself as president. He was re-elected in 1990, 1996 and again in 2002.

In recent years, Mugabe turned his attention to the unfinished business of land reform. The Lancaster House agreement only held to ‘willing sellers’ and many whites had no intention of moving. The ten year moratorium on constitutional change expired in 1990. Mugabe moved to amend it in order to provide for the redistribution of land within the country. Much of Zimbabwe’s most fertile land remained under control of a few thousand white farmers. And in 1997 newly elected Tony Blair ended Britain’s involvement in the buyback program. Mugabe started to forcibly repatriate the land.

His actions attracted the attention of the NGOs. Amnesty International, a long-time supporter of Zimbabwe since the apartheid era, criticised the Mugabe regime for its new activities. In 2005, it wrote a letter to Mugabe accusing him of orchestrating “widespread, violent and forced evictions of informal traders and families living in informal settlements.” Their call to the government to end “grave human rights violations” went unheeded. Zimbabwe's economy also continues to slide after Mugabe's ill-judged involvement in the Congolese wars.

However Mugabe remains popular in black Africa. When London-based New African magazine launched a 2004 poll for the “hundred greatest Africans” of all time, Mugabe came in at number 3 behind only Nelson Mandela and Ghana’s first president Kwame Nkrumah.