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Morgan Tsvangirai: Zimbabweans' main hope for change
Monsters and Critics
March 19, 2008

View article on The Monsters and Critics website

Harare - For journalists, the thing that sets Morgan Tsvangirai apart from other political leaders in Zimbabwe is his punctuality.

'Whenever he calls a press conference, he's there on the nail,' said one veteran correspondent. 'He starts immediately and doesn't care who's late.'

President Robert Mugabe routinely keeps the media waiting up to six hours.

Tsvangirai, a 56-year-old former national trade union boss, also appears to be the favourite of a major slice of Zimbabweans, though for different reasons.

According to a survey just published by the locally-based Mass Public Opinion Institute, Tsvangirai is significantly ahead of the 84-year-old Mugabe for the presidential vote on March 29, with 28.3 per cent of respondents opting for him, against 20.3 per cent for Mugabe.

Analysts agree that what voters actually decide is a murky issue in Zimbabwe, with each of the previous three national elections marred by state-sponsored violence and evidence of cheating by Mugabe's electoral administration.

In parliamentary elections in 2000 - less than a year after the formation of his now divided party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) - Tsvangirai lost the vote.

The High Court later overturned the result on the grounds of the climate of violent intimidation in the constituency. The court records mysteriously disappeared before an appeal against the decision and Tsvangirai's opponent kept the seat.

In the last presidential poll in 2002, Tsvangirai was again the loser, with 400,000 votes behind Mugabe out of a total of 3.1 ballots cast, in another election marked by savage violence and further evidence of cheating.

It took a notoriously pro-government judge three years to get round to hearing the case, which he then summarily dismissed.

Tsvangirai enters this election with his party and his reputation badly damaged by a split in the MDC for which he was held personally responsible.

He had stormed out of a party national executive council meeting on whether to participate in elections for the newly formed parliamentary upper chamber, and announcing to the media that the meeting had decided against fighting the election, when it had decided the opposite.

The party immediately sundered in two. Repeated attempts to reunite failed because, sources involved in the mediation efforts said, Tsvangirai was pushed by party militants into rejecting the offers of conciliation.

In January, mediators again tried to bring the two MDC factions into an agreement to fight the March election together, to avoid splitting the vote against Mugabe. Again Tsvangirai pulled back at the last moment, making excessive demands on the other faction which is led by robotics professor Arthur Mutambara.

Despite the perception of Tsvangirai being indecisive, timid and easily manipulated, Tsvangirai's support 'remains intact,' said political science professor Eldred Masunugure. 'There is evidence that his backing is solid.'

Morgan Richard Tsvagirai was born in the remote Buhera district of south-east Zimbabwe, the son of a bricklayer. Unlike his two presidential race opponents, Mugabe and ruling party rebel Simba Makoni now standing as an independent, Tsvangirai was unable to continue studying after passing his O-levels.

He began working as a miner, graduated to being foreman until trade union work drew him. He rose quickly, and took over the ruling party-dominated trade union movement in the late 1980s and immediately was in trouble for failing to toe the party line. He was arrested and held in detention without trial for six weeks.

As economic conditions in Zimbabwe stagnated, labour became increasingly vocal, and Tsvangirai as secretary general of the Zimbabwe National Congress of Trade Unions, organized highly successful national strikes.

In 1997, with his profile was so worrying for the regime that a group of Mugabe's war veteran militia forced their way into his office and tried to throw him out of the 10th-floor window. They were stopped when Tsvangirai's secretary walked in.

In 2000 he stunned Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party by leading opposition in a referendum on a state-manipulated draft constitution, and convincingly inflicting on Zanu-PF its first national electoral defeat in 20 years. Mugabe's response in parliamentary elections four months later was a wave of unprecedented brutality.

Since then, Tsvangirai has borne the brunt of a continuous state campaign against him. He has been repeatedly arrested, charged three times with treason - including a two-year trial over what the judge said was a faked plot to assassinate Mugabe.

Last March, he was hospitalized with head injuries for almost a week after he and about 30 other MDC officials and journalists were violently assaulted by police thugs in an attack.

'All that has had the effect of making him a martyr to ordinary Zimbabweans,' said a Western diplomat. 'Mugabe keeps on shooting himself in the foot by victimizing Tsvangirai.'

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