Power at last for Zimbabwean popular hero Tsvangirai (News Feature)

By Clare Byrne Sep 15, 2008, 14:30 GMT

Harare - After a decade as the face of the opposition in Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai received his just deserts Monday when he was named prime minister in a government of national unity alongside Robert Mugabe as president.

The stocky Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, who, a year and a half ago was nursing a fractured skull following a beating in police custody, shook hands with Mugabe on a deal to share power aimed at ending Zimbabwe's decade-long political and economic woes.

Few would ever have imagined the day when ex-guerrilla fighter Mugabe, 84 and ex-trade union leader Tsvangirai, 56, would agree to work together to shore up the world's fastest-shrinking economy.

Tsvangirai had previously insisted that the elderly leader retire.

His MDC's first-ever confirmed victory over Zanu-PF in March elections and his win over Mugabe in the first round of simultaneous presidential elections lent weight to his call to be top dog.

But in the end, with Mugabe still controlling the instruments of state repression and pressure from Zimbabwe's neighbours on Tsvangirai not to hold out on the country's turn-around, Tsvangirai had to settle for a deal that falls short of his demands, while giving him his first real taste of power.

As head of government and chair of a new MDC-dominated council of ministers that will be tasked with formulating and implementing policy, Tsvangirai will be in a position to drive sweeping changes to Zimbabwe's nationalistic and repressive laws.

For Mugabe and South African President Thabo Mbeki, who mediated the talks, Tsvangirai represents a new 'upstart' generation of pro- Western African leaders who challenge the hegemony of liberation movements-turned-ruling-parties like Zanu-PF.

Unlike Mugabe, Tsvangirai did not fight in the 1973-1979 guerrilla war against British rule. The bricklayer's son from Buhera in south- eastern Zimbabwe chose instead to work to support his family instead.

By contrast with the erudite Mugabe, who has seven university degrees, Tsvangirai had to quit school after his O-levels.

He began working as a miner until trade union work drew him. He rose quickly, taking over the leadership of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions in the late 1980s and later organizing a series of highly successful national strikes.

In 1999, Tsvangirai formed the MDC, and a year later stunned Mugabe by successfully leading the opposition to a referendum on a constitutional amendment that would have boosted the president's powers.

Mugabe's response to his first electoral setback in 20 years was to unleash his shock troops to soften up voters ahead of every subsequent election.

The strategy, combined with apparent rigging by the election body in his favour, saw Mugabe and Zanu-PF claim disputed victories in three national elections between 2000 and 2005.

This year's March elections were seen as Tsvangirai's last chance to prevent Mugabe seeing out his days in office unmolested.

Although he entered the election with his party and his reputation badly damaged over a two-year split in the MDC, Tsvangirai won the day.

After withdrawing from the June presidential election run-off against Mugabe in protest over the killing of scores of his supporters, he warned Mugabe there would be no talks on a unity government if he went ahead with the election.

Few, including Mugabe, believed him. Mugabe claimed a 'landslide' victory, crowned himself president and entered the talks with a stronger hand.

But it was Tsvangirai, as the man with the key to Western purses - needed to foot the bill for repairing the economic chaos wrought by Mugabe - who had the trump card.

Cognizant that the billions of dollars needed to rebuild Zimbabwe would flow without him, Tsvangirai walked away from a first draft deal that would have made him a relatively toothless prime minister.

In the end of the day, Monday's agreement, as Mugabe stressed, was the product of painful concessions from both sides.

Appealing to Zimbabweans and international donors to get behind the deal, Tsvangirai said: 'The world has too many examples of when people were driven by past wrongs rather than future glories.'

'If you join me in this we will not fail to witness the rebirth of our nation.'