Robert Mugabe: Biography from Answers.com Mobile

Robert Gabriel Mugabe

(born Feb. 21, 1924, Kutama, Southern Rhodesia [now Zimbabwe]) First prime minister (1980 – 87) and executive president (from 1987) of Zimbabwe. With Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe led a Marxist-inspired guerrilla war that forced the white-dominated government of Ian Smith to accept universal elections, which Mugabe's party, Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), easily won. He formed a coalition government with Nkomo's Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), but he removed Nkomo in 1982. In 1984 the two parties were merged as ZANU – Patriotic Front, as Mugabe moved to convert Zimbabwe from a parliamentary democracy into a one-party socialist state. His rule was marked by violence and intimidation and by a decreasing tolerance of political opposition. Long-simmering political tensions between Mugabe and the opposition party, headed by Morgan Tsvangirai, led to a hotly contested presidential election in 2008 and a protracted political crisis. An agreement for a power-sharing government was reached in September 2008, in which Mugabe would remain president but would cede some power to Tsvangirai, who would become prime minister. The power-sharing government was implemented in February 2009.

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