Morgan Tsvangirai

By Luke Tamborinyoka

Today, marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s doyen of the democratic struggle. Tsvangirai loved his country and its people and it may have been epiphanic that he died on Valentine’s Day; on the day that the consuming power of love is celebrated worldwide.

Tsvangirai left a rich legacy that is being strenuously torn asunder by the treacherous and mercenary lot among us; the wicked motley that has chosen to be Zanu PF’s willing tool in the macabre plot to decimate the people’s democratic project.

The Morgan Tsvangirai I know must certainly be violently turning in his grave at this unbridled treachery and the annihilation of his legacy by these latter-day Judas Iscariots who jointly and severally are now hobnobbing with ZANU PF to undermine a struggle he founded, cherished and nurtured till his death on St. Valentine’s Day in 2018.

By Luke Tamborinyoka

Memory is a site of the struggle. Today is 27 June 2023. In Zimbabwe’s tenuous political story, June 27 is infamous for the bloody violence in the contrived run-off poll of 27 June 2008 in which Zanu PF used massive violence to reverse the 29th March 2008 poll victory by Morgan Tsvangirai.

On 22 June of the same year, Morgan Tsvangirai had pulled out of the violent run-off saying he could not sacrifice the people for power– famously stating that he would not walk to State House on top of dead bodies and graves.

The contrived blood-soaked run-off plebiscite was dismissed by SADC and the AU as a sham, leading to the formation of the inclusive government in February 2009, which government brought the much-needed fillip to the weather-beaten people of Zimbabwe.