Robert Mugabe
Robert Gabriel Mugabe (born 21 February 1924) is the President of Zimbabwe. He has served as the head of government since 1980, as Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987, and as the first executive head of state since 1987. Since the run-off election of 2008 his legitimacy as president has been called into question; the G8 released a collective statement in July saying they “do not accept the legitimacy of a government that does not reflect the will of the Zimbabwean people”. On September 15, 2008, a power-sharing agreement, brokered by then-South African President Thabo Mbeki, was signed. Under the terms of this agreement, Mugabe will be recognised by the Movement for Democratic Change as president and Morgan Tsvangirai will become prime minister, the MDC will control the Republic Police, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front will command the armed forces and Arthur Mutambara becomes deputy prime minister.
Mugabe rose to prominence in the 1960s as the Secretary General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). For many years in the ’60s and ’70s Mugabe was a political prisoner in Rhodesia. His goal was to replace white minority-rule with a one-party Marxist regime. He left Rhodesia in 1976 to join the Zimbabwe Liberation Struggle (Rhodesian Bush War) from bases in Mozambique. At the end of the war in 1979, Mugabe emerged as a hero in the minds of many Africans. He won the general elections of 1980, the second in which the majority Black Africans participated in large numbers (though the electoral system in Rhodesia had allowed Black participation based on qualified franchise), amid reports of violent intimidation by the militants he now controlled. Mugabe then became the first Prime Minister after calling for reconciliation between formerly warring parties, including the white people as well as rival parties.
The years following Zimbabwe’s independence saw an armed conflict between Mugabe’s Government and dissident followers of Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU.
Since 1998 Mugabe’s policies have increasingly elicited domestic and international denunciation. His government pursued a costly intervention in the Second Congo War, expropriated thousands of white-owned farms, printed hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars triggering hyperinflation, and has been accused of harassing and intimidating political opponents, particularly members of the Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwe’s economy spiraled downward, with food and oil shortages, and with massive internal displacement and emigration. During this period Mugabe’s policies have been denounced in the West and at home as racist against Zimbabwe’s white minority. Mugabe has described his critics as “born again colonialists”, and both he and his supporters claim Zimbabwe’s problems are the legacy of imperialism, aggravated by Western economic meddling.
Mugabe lost the first round of the 2008 election to prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, 43% to 48%, though neither candidate secured the 50% necessary to avoid a runoff election. The MDC claimed that the official results had been altered to force a run-off vote, since their returns suggested that Tsvangirai had received 50.3% of the vote.
Prime Minister and President
After a campaign marked by intimidation from all sides, mistrust from security forces and reports of full ballot boxes found on the road, the Shona majority was decisive in electing Mugabe to head the first government as prime minister on 4 March 1980. ZANU won 57 out of 80 Common Roll seats in the new parliament, with the 20 white seats all going to the Rhodesian Front.
Mugabe, whose political support came from his Shona-speaking homeland in the north, attempted to build Zimbabwe on a basis of an uneasy coalition with his Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) rivals, whose support came from the Ndebele-speaking south, and with the white minority. Mugabe sought to incorporate ZAPU into his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) led government and ZAPU’s military wing into the army. ZAPU’s leader, Joshua Nkomo, was given a series of cabinet positions in Mugabe’s government. However, Mugabe was torn between this objective and pressures to meet the expectations of his own ZANU followers for a faster pace of social change.
In 1983, Mugabe fired Nkomo from his cabinet, triggering bitter fighting between ZAPU supporters in the Ndebele-speaking region of the country and the ruling ZANU. Mugabe accused the Ndebele tribe of plotting to overthrow him after sacking Nkomo. Between 1982 and 1985, the military crushed armed resistance from Ndebele groups in the provinces of Matabeleland and the Midlands, leaving Mugabe’s rule secure. Mugabe has been accused by the BBC’s Panorama programme of committing mass murder during this period of his rule. A peace accord was negotiated in 1987. ZAPU merged into the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) on 22 December 1988. Mugabe brought Nkomo into the government once again as a vice-president.
In 1987, the position of Prime Minister was abolished and Mugabe assumed the new office of executive President of Zimbabwe gaining additional powers in the process. He was re-elected in 1990 and 1996, and in 2002 amid claims of widespread vote-rigging and intimidation. Mugabe’s term of office expired at the end of March 2008.
Mugabe has been the Chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe since Parliament passed the University of Zimbabwe Amendment Bill in November 1990.
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