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HARARE: Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai reached a historic power-sharing deal with his political foe President Robert Mugabe, ending a near decade political animosity.
Tsvangirai, who co-founded the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), will become prime minister of Zimbabwe in a new government structure brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday last week.
Tsvangirai, who was declared the first round winner of the March presidential poll but fell short of a clear majority, has been often labelled a "stooge" of the West by Mugabe and his supporters.
In June, Tsvangirai withdrew from the presidential run-off citing state organised violence against his supporters, but Mugabe proceeded with the disputed one-man vote which he won overwhelmingly.
Under the deal, Tsvangirai will be prime minister while Mugabe retains his title as the president.
As prime minister, Tsvangirai will chair the council of ministers which is responsible for the day-to-day managing of the country's affairs.
He will manage 31 ministers split between ZANU-PF with 15, MDC-Tsvangirai with 13 and MDC-Mutambara with three.
Since June, Tsvangirai has embarked on a diplomatic tour of Africa aimed at drumming up support for his cause and has received full backing from other heads of state including Botswana's President Ian Khama and Kenya's Prime Minister Raila Odinga.
He said earlier that a historic victory by his Movement for Democratic Change in the parliamentary polls held at the same time as the presidential vote on March 29 meant that Mugabe "cannot be president."
Tsvangirai's political acumen has sometimes been questioned but few have doubted his courage, whether standing in the dock on charges of treason or lying in hospital with serious head wounds after a police beating.
In the run-up to the disputed June run-off, he was 'arrested' several times while on his campaign trail.
In August, he refused to sign an earlier deal saying he needed more time to "consult".
The opposition leader has been a thorn in the side of Mugabe since the 1990s and accused him of rigging his way to victory in a 2002 election in which official results gave Tsvangirai 1.2 million votes against Mugabe's 1.6 million.
Tsvangirai is taking charge of a country facing an economic meltdown with an inflation rate of more than 11 million per cent and an unemployment rate of 80 per cent.
He first took on Mugabe when, as secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, he led a series of crippling strikes against high taxes in 1997 and 1998.
His protests were not appreciated by his foes. He claims to have been the target of four assassination attempts, including one in 1997 when assailants tried to throw him out of his office window.
He is one of the founding members of the Movement for Democratic Change in September 1999.
Tsvangirai's career almost came to a halt in 2001 when he went on trial charged with plotting to kill Mugabe in a case based on testimony by a former Israeli secret agent. He was eventually cleared.
Two years later, a second charge of treason was levelled against him for calling on party supporters to overthrow the government in a case which was thrown out of court before going to trial.
His most recent run-in with the law came in March 2007 when he was among dozens of opposition supporters caught in clashes as they tried to stage an anti-government rally, suffering head injuries.
“Yes, they brutalised my flesh. But they will never break my spirit. I will soldier on until Zimbabwe is free," he said in a message from his hospital bed.
Born in 1952 in Gutu, south of the capital Harare, he is the eldest of nine children and the son of a bricklayer.
After school, he worked for 10 years at a nickel mine in the province of Mashonaland Central, rising to become general foreman before having his first taste of politics in a trade union.
- AFP/yb
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