Liberal International
19 April 2010
On 19 April, Zimbabwe marked 30 years of rule by Robert Mugabe, who has served as both Prime Minister and the first President of the country. Last year, Robert Mugabe entered into a power sharing agreement with the Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai) and Movement for Democratic Change(MDC led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutumbara).
Senator David Coltart, Minister for Education, Culture and Sport from MDC, and theme rapporteur for the 56th Congress of Liberal International, had this to say of the occasion: “One cannot analyse Mugabe’s 30 years’ of rule in isolation. It needs to be put in the context of 50 years of undemocratic rule: almost 20 years under the Rhodesian Front party whose legacy was 30 years of Zanu PF misrule. Southern Rhodesia lost its way in the early 1960s; the undemocratic and racist rule of the Rhodesian Front radicalised black nationalist politics. Zanu PF merely adapted and perpetuated authoritarian laws and policies first devised by the Rhodesian Front. Zimbabwe is only now emerging from a nightmare which was last five decades.’