Zimbabwe opposition leader undone by power-sharing deal

Born: March 10, 1952

Died: February 14, 2018

MORGAN Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader, who has died of colon cancer aged 65, won a presidential election in March 2008. But the incumbent head of state, Robert Mugabe, refused to cede power.

Militias loyal to Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party – the self-styled “war veterans” – and the Zimbabwe Army launched a campaign of political violence in which more than 250 members of Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), were killed and thousands injured.

Mugabe’s crack-down, which resulted in him retaining increasingly autocratic power for another decade until he was forced from power last November, was widely described as a slow-motion military coup.

The contest between Mugabe, a university-educated Machiavellian, and Tsvangirai, a charismatic former labour leader who never went to college and was often described as a well-intentioned but bumbling tactician, marked the lowest of many low points in Zimbabwe’s tumultuous post-colonial history.

The election result seemed at first to be Tsvangirai’s moment of triumph. He had demonstrated enormous political courage. Detained several times by Mugabe, he suffered horrendous beatings in prison and survived three assassination attempts.

His victory in the first round of voting in 2008 was welcomed by most Zimbabweans who were wearied by years of authoritarian rule: they hoped for a more democratic, peaceful and prosperous future in what was once one of Africa’s most stable and wealthy nations. Those were the days of 100,000 per cent inflation and 100 trillion-dollar banknotes in Zimbabwe: drinks prices could and did change between courses at lunch. Droll Zimbabweans joked that a new Barbie doll on the market came with no shoes, no clothes, no make-up, no car, no food and no house: “She’s called Zimbarbie!”

The army crack-down began the MDC leader’s inexorable and tragic decline. He forfeited a second round of voting for fear that many more of his followers would be murdered.

Mugabe instead struck a power-sharing deal – brokered by Thabo Mbeki, then South Africa’s head of state – with Tsvangirai, who agreed to become prime minister with Mugabe remaining as president. Despite the accord, the wily Mugabe retained power over the security forces and courts while grabbing nearly all the key ministries: he continued to appoint all the provincial governors. Traditional chiefs, long-time recipients of largesse from ZANU-PF, endorsed Mugabe as President-for-Life. Like one of southern Africa’s deadly poisonous violin spiders, Mugabe successfully lured Tsvangirai into a web and invited him to self-destruct – which he did. Or, as one Zimbabwean commentator, Dumisanio Muleya, put it: “We all saw it coming. Tsvangirai and his party slept on the job and were led by the nose to the slaughterhouse.”

Having agreed to share power with his nemesis, Tsvangirai sacrificed the moral high ground and his party lost momentum. Their popularity waned and Tsvangirai never again came near to winning power. Trading his trade-unionist leather jacket for tailored suits and abandoning his trademark beat-up old Mazda, he was accused of the sins of incumbency. He and fellow MDC leaders were seduced by ministerial houses and luxury cars given to them by Mugabe.

Raymond Majongwe, secretary-general of the 14,000-strong Progressive Teachers’ Union, a key MDC supporter, said the power-sharing deal was the undoing of Tsvangirai and his top colleagues. “They exposed their own naivety and appetite for opulence and extravagance,” complained Majongwe. “The wealth these MDC guys accumulated is shocking.” If Tsvangirai was ever to win an election, Majongwe predicted, he would loot the nation like his predecessor.

In a country where millions live on only $US2 a day Tsvangirai moved into a government residence provided by Mugabe that had cost about $US3 million to build.

Mugabe gloated. Speaking in Shona, the majority language, at Mhondoro, in his Zezuru clan heartland, he said only God would remove him from power. Describing his opponent as a “tea boy”, he went on: “Tsvangirai thought I would say, ‘There you are, take over the presidency’ and that I would step aside. That’s what he was dreaming. But he had yet to be taught a lesson.”

Morgan Tsvangirai was born into deep poverty in Gutu, in Masvingo Province in central Zimbabwe. He was the eldest of nine children of Chibwe, a bricklayer, and his wife Lydia. With further education out of the question, Morgan began working life as a textile operator at the age of 16.

He went on to work as a labourer at a northern Zimbabwe nickel mine. He became a foreman but also became a trade union organiser and was elected to the executive of the National Mineworkers Union (NUM). When Zimbabwe gained independence in 1980 he joined Mugabe's party and rose to be a senior official of ZANU-PF and also secretary-general of the NUM. By 1997-98, however, he had become disillusioned with Mugabe’s rule and led a series of strikes which brought the country to a standstill. In 1999 he broke from ZANU-PF and founded the MDC.

His personal life began to unwind in 2009 when his wife of 31 years, Susan Mhundwa, with whom he had six children, died in a car accident. Tsvangirai was injured in the same crash. Three years later he married Elizabeth Macheka despite a court judgment confirming that he had married another woman in a traditional ceremony.

Tsvangirai gradually squandered what little sway he had as he became embroiled in a series of sex scandals and revelations of illegitimate children, as well as his bigamous marriage – all featured in heavy rotation on Zimbabwe’s state-controlled TV. His credibility was seriously tarnished when Freedom House, the United States watchdog group, conducted a survey showing that support for the MDC fell 50 percent between 2010 and 2013. The MDC was crushed in July 2013 elections. Two months later Tsvangirai resigned as prime minister, and Mugabe underlined his pre-eminence by abolishing the post.

By this time cancer had begun to consume him, and his party suffered several splits. He died with the satisfaction that at least he had lived to witness the overthrow of 93-year-old Mugabe whom he had battled for so many years.

Tsvangirai is survived by his six children by his first wife, Susan, and by his second wife, Elizabeth.

FRED BRIDGLAND