Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Tsvangirai dies at 65
Founded the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in 1999
Morgan Tsvangirai, the veteran Zimbabwean opposition leader who confronted Robert Mugabe’s regime for many years, died on Wednesday after a battle with cancer, a party official said. He was 65.
Tsvangirai, who founded the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party in 1999, was among the most prominent critics of Mugabe, who was ousted from power in November.
“It is sad for me to announce that we have lost our icon and fighter for democracy,” Elias Mudzuri, one of the vice-presidents of the MDC, said on Twitter. Tsvangirai died in a South African hospital.
Zimbabwe is ready to help foot the bill for the funeral arrangements of Tsvangirai, a government spokesman said yesterday.
“The Zimbabwean Embassy in Pretoria has been instructed to help in any way appropriate in the circumstances, including assuming the costs that are attendant to the proper handling of the body of the late [Tsvangirai],” said George Charamba, who is also the presidential spokesman.
Zimbabwe’s new president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has made no public statement yet on the former trade union leader’s death.
Detained many times
Mugabe’s ZANU-PF government detained him on numerous occasions due to his vocal criticism of the regime.
Security forces first swooped on Tsvangirai, then a feisty trade union leader, in 1989 after he bluntly warned about the rising tide of political repression in the country.
Ten years later he set up the MDC, which rose to pose the greatest challenge to Mugabe’s all-powerful government.
In March 2007, police badly beat up Tsvangirai and dozens of opposition activists when they attempted to stage an antigovernment rally in a township in Harare.
In the election the following year he beat Mugabe in the first round of the vote — but after violence against Tsvangirai’s supporters, which he claims cost 200 lives, he was forced to pull out of the run-off.
He went on to form a unity government with the ruling ZANU-PF after disputed elections, but was widely seen as being outmanoeuvred as he served as prime minister under Mugabe.
Tsvangirai claimed to have been the target of four assassination attempts — including one in 1997 in which he said attackers tried to throw him out of his office window.
Last week senior members of his party clashed in public in a power struggle between Mudzuri and another of his deputies Nelson Chamisa, 40, over who was in charge of the party — months before key elections. Analysts warn that the party is likely to face a major split following his death.
Tsvangirai’s death firmly places President Emmerson Mnangagwa, the ZANU-PF veteran who took over after Mugabe’s ousting, on the path to victory in elections that are to be held before July.
‘Very sad’
British foreign minister
“Very sad indeed — as you know the president [Mnangagwa] visited him at home to wish him well — but God gives and God has taken,” ZANU-PF spokesman Simon Khaya Moyo told AFP.
Tsvangirai announced two years ago that he had been diagnosed with colon cancer.
“Morgan Tsvangirai represented courage and determination in the face of oppression, and gave ordinary Zimbabweans faith to believe in the future,” tweeted British foreign minister Boris Johnson. “He was one of the bravest political leaders of his time and will be sadly missed”.