Obituary: Eddison Zvobgo

The former Zimbabwean Cabinet minister Eddison Zvobgo, who has died aged 68 after a long illness, was a founder of the ruling Zanu-PF party. But though a spokesperson referred to his death as a great loss to country and party, Zvobgo had become a controversial figure in recent years, having led some challenges within Zanu-PF to the autocratic rule of President Robert Mugabe. Endowed with a flashing intelligence and a razor-sharp wit, Zvobgo never hid his ambition to succeed Mugabe; as a result, he was perpetually sidelined.

Zvobgo was born in southern Zimbabwe, near Fort Victoria (now Masvingo), where his father was a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. He went to mission schools, where he excelled academically before graduating from Tegwani secondary school. In 1960, he won a scholarship to Tufts University, in Boston, Massachusetts. After taking a bachelor’s degree there in 1964, he returned home to be promptly arrested for his involvement in the nationalist struggle against white minority rule in what was then Southern Rhodesia.

Freed in 1971, he returned to the US to study law at Harvard, where he took his PhD. He then taught criminal law as an associate professor at Lewis University College, in Illinois, before going to Mozambique, where he became a key aide to Mugabe in 1978.

Zvobgo played an important role in the international negotiations that ended the bitter Rhodesian bush war and led to British-sponsored, all-race elections ahead of independence in 1980. During the 1979 Lancaster House talks, he was the Zanu-PF spokesman, and impressed many in the international press with his quick repartee and astute analysis of the negotiations. In the 1980 elections, he won a seat in parliament for Masvingo, which he continued to hold until his death.

An influential member of Zimbabwe’s first fully independent cabinet, Zvobgo was minister for local government and housing until 1982, and minister for justice until 1985. As minister of parliamentary and constitutional affairs, in 1987 he made several amendments to the Constitution that concentrated power in the hands of the president and moved Zimbabwe towards a one-party state. Critics suggested he was creating powers that he hoped to enjoy himself once Mugabe retired. But by the mid-1990s, it became clear that Mugabe had no intention of stepping down from office.

In 1992, Zvobgo was moved to the less influential post of minister of mines. In 1996, he survived a car accident, in which both his legs were broken; the incident looked suspiciously like several others in which challengers to Mugabe have died. Shortly after the accident, Mugabe demoted Zvobgo further to minister without portfolio, and, in 2000, he was dropped from the Cabinet altogether.

Zvobgo became a regional power baron in Masvingo, where he owned two hotels. In the 2002 presidential elections, he refused to campaign for Mugabe, but did not endorse the opposition challenger Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (DMC). He also voiced his opposition to the sweeping media law, passed the same year, calling it ”the most serious assault on our constitutional liberties since independence”.

Despite his criticism, Zvobgo eventually voted for the legislation, which was used to close off Zimbabwe’s only privately owned daily newspaper, The Daily News, and to arrest more than 70 independent journalists.

He became the subject of a party disciplinary inquiry in 2003 for his refusal to campaign for Mugabe and his attack on the media laws as a weapon to stifle opposition, but allegations of disloyalty were eventually dropped. He was accused also of holding private talks with the MDC at the time when Zanu-PF abandoned formal dialogue between the two parties.

Meeting with a gaunt, but still ebullient, Zvobgo in 2002, I noticed how he had mastered the art of criticising Mugabe and Zanu-PF only on technicalities. Smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, he was outgoing and voluble, happily talking about his role at Lancaster House and the early years of independence. He became more guarded when discussing Zimbabwe’s current crisis. Although he gave a qualified criticism of Mugabe’s land seizures, he assiduously avoided any sweeping statements in favour of a free press, respect for human rights, and free and fair elections. He refused to condemn Mugabe or Zanu-PF; even pushed aside, he remained loyal.

It is expected that Zvobgo will be declared a national hero and buried in Harare at Heroes’ Acre. His wife Julia, a former Zanu-PF MP, died in February at the age of 67. He is survived by seven children.