27 June 2009
analysis
Lagos — Morgan Tsvangirai is a walking epitome of the Zimbabwean struggle. He was born in the Gutu area in then-Southern Rhodesia, the eldest of nine children and the son of a carpenter and bricklayer. After leaving school early, in 1974 he started working for the Trojan Nickel Mine in Mashonaland Central. He spent ten years at the mine, rising from plant operator to plant supervisor. His current rural home is Buhera, which is 220 km south east of Harare.
At independence in 1980 Morgan Tsvangirai, who was then aged 28, joined the then popular and victorious Zanu-PF party led by the man who was later to become his biggest political rival, Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai is reported to have been an ardent Mugabe supporter and to have risen "swiftly in the hierarchy", eventually becoming one of the party's senior officials. He is also known for his role in the Zimbabwean trade union movement, where he held the position of branch chairman of the Associated Mine Workers' Union and was later elected into the executive of the National Mine Workers' Union. In 1989 he became the Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the umbrella trade union organization of Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai led the ZCTU away from the ruling Zanu PF. As his power and that of the movement grew, his relationship with the Government deteriorated. He has survived at least three assassination attempts, including one in 1997 where unknown assailants burst into his tenth story office and tried to throw him out of the window.
National Constitutional Assembly
Morgan Tsvangirai served as Chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) in 1997, which was formed to gather individual Zimbabwean citizens and civic organisations including labour movements, student and youth groups, women's groups, churches, business groups and human rights organisations. These individuals and groups formed the NCA to campaign for constitutional reform after realising that the political, social and economic problems affecting Zimbabwe were mainly a result of the defective Lancaster House constitution and could only be resolved through a new and democratic constitution. He stepped down after being elected president of the MDC.
In 1999 Tsvangirai founded and organised the Movement for Democratic Change, an opposition party opposed to President Robert Mugabe and the ZANU-PF ruling party. He helped to defeat the February 2000 constitutional referendum, successfully campaigning against it along with the National Constitutional Assembly.
Tsvangirai lost the March 2002 presidential election to Mugabe. The election provoked widespread allegations that Mugabe had rigged the election through the use of violence, media bias, and manipulation of the voters' roll leading to abnormally high pro-Mugabe turnout in some areas.
Tsvangirai was arrested after the 2000 elections and charged with treason; this charge was later dismissed. In 2004, Tsvangirai was acquitted of treason for an alleged plot to assassinate Mugabe in the run-up to the 2002 presidential elections. George Bizos, a South African human rights lawyer who was part of the team that defended Nelson Mandela & Walter Sisulu in the famous South African Rivonia Trial in 1964, headed Morgan Tsvangirai's defence team.
October 2000 arrest
Tsvangirai was arrested after the government alleged that he had threatened President Robert Mugabe. The Movement for Democratic Change leader had told 40,000 supporters at a rally in Harare that if Mr Mugabe did not want to step down before the next elections scheduled for 2002 "we will remove you violently." However, Tsvangirai said that he was giving a warning to President Mugabe to consider history. "There is a long line of dictators who have refused to go peacefully - and the people have removed them violently," he said. The courts dismissed the charges.
June 2003 arrest
In May, 2003 Tsvangirai was arrested on a Friday afternoon shortly after giving a press conference, the government alleged he had incited violence. In the press conference he had said:
From Monday, 2 June, up to today, 6 June, Mugabe was not in charge of this country. He was busy marshaling his forces of repression against the sovereign will of the people of Zimbabwe. However, even in the context of the brutalities inflicted upon them, the people's spirit of resistance was not broken. The sound of gunfire will never silence their demand for change and freedom.
March 2007 arrest and beating
On 11 March 2007 a day after his 55th birthday, Tsvangirai was arrested on his way to a prayer rally in the Harare township of Highfield.
His wife was allowed to see him in prison, after which she reported that he had been heavily tortured by police, resulting in deep gashes on his head and a badly swollen eye. The event garnered an international outcry.
He was tortured by a Special Forces of Zimbabwe unit based at the army's Cranborne Barracks on 12 March 2007 after being arrested and held at Machipisa Police Station in the Highfield suburb of Harare
Tsvangirai's bodyguard killed
On 25 October 2007 it was reported that Nhamo Musekiwa who was Morgan Tsvangirai's bodyguard since the formation of the MDC in 1999, had died from complications resulting from injuries sustained in March, 2007, during a crackdown by the government. The MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said Musekiwa had been vomiting blood since 11 March 2007, when he is alleged to have been severely beaten by police along with other opposition officials and members including Tsvangirai himself.
June 2008 arrest
Morgan Tsvangirai was detained by police while campaigning on Wednesday, 4 June 2008, after being stopped at a police roadblock. Tsvangirai and a group of 14 party officials were held at a police station in Lupane. This was claimed by Tsvangirai, and widely believed by human rights groups, to be a tactic to disrupt his campaign for the 27 June elections. Tsvangirai was accused by police of threatening public security by addressing a gathering without prior authorisation. His detention was vigorously protested by the United States and various European governments. He was released without charge after eight hours. Tsvangirai commented that this was "nothing but the usual harassment which is totally unnecessary." The police also confiscated one of the security vehicles in the entourage. During this time, Mugabe was in Rome at a conference on food security. However, chief police spokesperson of Zimbabwe Wayne Bvudzijena said Tsvangirai's convoy was stopped because one of the vehicles did not have proper registration. The driver of the vehicle was asked to accompany the police to the station, but others in the party insisted on following the driver to the station. This was followed by the brief detention of diplomats from the United States and United Kingdom.
On 6 June 2008 he was again stopped at a police checkpoint and blocked from attending a pre-election rally at How Mine, near the southern city of Bulawayo. According to the chairman of the Movement for Democratic Change, Lovemore Moyo, the police said they should have informed the police in advance of Tsvangirai visiting the area
A presidential election and parliamentary election was held on 29 March 2008. The three major candidates were Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni, an independent.
The MDC photographed data at each polling station to collate for electoral results. Whenever the MDC collects this kind of information the government raids their offices, hoping to confiscate the data. The MDC now keeps the data abroad. A short time after the election, the Government ordered weapons of war from China, to be transported through South Africa. Tyhe official results of the presidential election's first round were finally released on 2 May 2008 and hotly contested by the MDC representatives. According to the results released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, Tsvangirai won the first round, amassing 47.9% of the votes against 43.2% claimed by Mugabe. This meant that no candidate had the necessary 50% plus one vote to be declared the winner after the first round and a run-off would be needed. MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa called the announced results "scandalous daylight robbery." The MDC continued to assert that it won an outright victory in the first round with 50.3% of the votes.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
