Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who led Zimbabwe from 1980 until 2017. He served as the country's first Prime Minister from 1980 to 1987 and as its second President from 1987 to 2017. He also led the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) from 1975 to 1980 and then its successor political party, the ZANU – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF), from 1980 to 2017. Ideologically an African nationalist, during the 1970s and 1980s he identified as a Marxist–Leninist, and from the 1990s as a socialist.

Mugabe was born to a poor Shona family in Kutama, Southern Rhodesia. Educated at Kutama College and the University of Fort Hare, he worked as a schoolteacher. Angered by white minority rule of his homeland within the British Empire, Mugabe embraced Marxism and joined African nationalists calling for an independent state controlled by the black majority. After making antigovernmental comments, he was convicted of sedition and imprisoned between 1964 and 1974. On release, he fled to Mozambique, established his leadership of ZANU, and oversaw its role in the Rhodesian Bush War, fighting Ian Smith's predominantly white government. He reluctantly participated in peace talks in the United Kingdom that resulted in the Lancaster House Agreement, ending the war. In the 1980 general election, Mugabe led ZANU-PF to victory, becoming prime minister when the country, now renamed Zimbabwe, gained internationally recognised independence later that year. Mugabe's administration expanded healthcare and education and—despite his professed desire for a socialist society—adhered largely to mainstream economic policies.