A Power Profile of Robert Mugabe

President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe (U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Lock)

Since Zimbabwe’s independence from the British colonial state of Rhodesia in 1980, President Robert Mugabe and his Zimbabwe African National Union Party (ZANU-PF) have dominated virtually every aspect of society and the state. However, the increasingly fervent political demonstrations of the Tajamuka ("We Strongly Disagree”) movement seek to dismantle Mugabe’s vice grip on authority. Last week, the Zimbabwean High court, in an unprecedented divergence from the status quo, defied Mugabe’s police and struck down the ban. The High Court’s break from precedent illustrates the growing internal discord between Zimbabwe’s elites and its institutions as the nation prepares for life after Mugabe’s approaching demise. At 92 years old, Mugabe’s rapidly deteriorating health curiously mirrors the precipitous decline of Zimbabwe.

Although born from bloodshed, Zimbabwe once received immense international and regional acclaim, even inspiring South Africa in its paths towards independence. Zimbabwe’s path to independence involved a ferocious seven-year war between Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith’s white conscripted forces, the nationalist guerrilla fighters of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), and Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe African People’s Union. After the war’s conclusion and the loss of 27,000 lives, Smith acquiesced in 1979 and signed the Lancaster House Agreement, which allowed new elections and allocated 20 percent of parliamentary seats to whites. After the ZANU-PF’s triumphant election in February of 1980, Governor of Rhodesia Christopher Soames, Prince Charles, and Mugabe stood together in the Harare football stadium as Bob Marley ushered in the birth of the new nation with a song titled “Zimbabwe.” However, a power outage plunged the lively flag-raising ceremony into darkness, eerily foreshadowing Zimbabwe’s descent into decline under Mugabe’s leadership.

Before assuming the presidency, Mugabe became a teacher while simultaneously pursuing numerous degrees. While studying in Ghana, Mugabe became enthralled with the egalitarian values of Marxism and sought to realize these ideals at home. Upon his arrival, Mugabe witnessed the profound economic, educational, and political disparities between the black majority and the rapidly-expanding white minority. Consequently, as a self-proclaimed Marxist, Mugabe embarked on a campaign aimed at increasing the political representations of black individuals and reversing the government’s policy of displacing black families. However, the Rhodesian government swiftly responded by apprehending Mugabe and sentencing him to ten years in prison for subversion.

Following his release in 1974, Mugabe quickly rose to power within the ZANU and emerged as the opposition leader poised to succeed the colonial state. In pursuit of egalitarian ideals and rectifying the transgressions of the colonial state, the new regime invested heavily in education and health sectors, thus engendering the rise of an incredibly well-educated populace and the strongest black middle class of any African nation post-independence. The astounding transformation of the Zimbabwean society was met with acclaim by international leaders including the Queen, who bestowed Mugabe with an honorary knighthood.

Despite a promising trajectory, Zimbabwe’s geopolitical ascension soon crashed as Mugabe increased his consolidation of power and his intolerance of dissent. In 1997, a clerk working in the labor and social welfare ministry leaked documents that outlined a pension fund that systematically favored select veterans while excluding a vast majority of ZANLA veterans that had secured Mugabe’s victory against Smith’s forces. In a hasty attempt to pacify the proliferating discontent within his ranks, Mugabe called upon officials to establish a $3.5 billion (ZWL) fund to compensate 50,000 veterans. As a result, Zimbabwe’s economy drastically plummeted, with the Zimbabwean currency falling from ZWL-£ ratio of 8-1 to an abysmal rate of 824-1. Zimbabwe’s economy was dealt an additional blow when Mugabe capriciously ordered the expulsion of many middle-class whites and confiscated their land to be divided amongst impoverished blacks. This confiscation of land decimated the human capital and resulted in massive unemployment that further strained society.

Mugabe’s regime continues to implement harsher restrictions on civil society, including the extrajudicial killings of dissents, warrantless searches of local enterprises, and expulsion of foreign journalists. The platform of this opposition is beginning to permeate through the once impregnable ranks of Mugabe’s government as civil servants and police officers watch their salaries vanish. In the international arena, even long time allies such China and Mozambique have distanced themselves from Mugabe’s unstable regime. Thus, as crucial international allies retract their support, Zimbabwe appears to be dying in the same manner in which it was born: in a cloud of tear gas and chaotic darkness with Mugabe at the helm.