words, when the white general Peter Walls, in
charge of Rhodesia’s security forces, was con-
firmed as the commander of the country’s new
army, into which would be integrated the guerrilla
fighters. Ministers were appointed to Mugabe’s
government who supported Nkomo; white minis-
ters were also appointed. Ian Smith was able to
lead a white-settler party in parliament and to
enjoy freedom and comfort. There was no retri-
bution. Mugabe did not abandon his vision of a
socialist, one-party state, but he was not going to
drive out the white settlers and businessmen on
whom the country’s economy depended or risk
plunging the country into new conflict.
Mugabe’s leadership of Zimbabwe was states-
manlike at the outset. From the first, the chief
political problem of the new state was the old
rivalry of Nkomo’s ZAPU, with its tribal base
among the Ndebele in Matabeleland, and
Mugabe’s ZANU, whose members were Shona.
The Shona bitterly resented the lack of military
support received from Nkomo’s ZAPU during
the fight for freedom. The Patriotic Front had
never been more than a marriage of convenience.
Nkomo, the cautious, weaker and vacillating
older man, lost the contest to the younger
Mugabe, who had clear goals: progress towards a
one-party state and the abolition of the separate
(and ‘racist’) reserved white seats in parliament.
Mugabe bullied and cajoled Nkomo. Unrest in
Matabeleland was suppressed in the mid-1980s by
harsh repression. It was the first indication how
ruthless Mugabe could be, regardless of the inter-
ests of his country if he felt his hold on power
being threatened. For a time rivalry with Nkomo
who assumed a subservient role was patched up.
The Mugabe government continued to arrest
and detain opponents without trial under the
Emergency Powers legislation first introduced by
Ian Smith. Mugabe came close to achieving two
of his aims. With the necessary two-thirds major-
ity assured, which included support from white
settlers, the reserved white seats were abolished
and Nkomo agreed to a union of ZANU with
ZAPU, ending the rivalry of the previous twenty
years. Nkomo entered the government as vice-
president. But events in the Soviet Union and
Eastern Europe led Mugabe in 1990 to abandon
the progression to a one-party state. He also jet-
tisoned some economic planks of Marxism. Once
more cool pragmatism and the need for Western
aid won over ideological commitment.
The economy was from the start the Achilles
heel of Mugabe’s regime. While denouncing
South Africa’s apartheid racism, Zimbabwe was
nevertheless dependent on its neighbour for
much of its imports and exports. The principal
exports, which did reasonably well during the
decade, were tobacco and cotton. Agriculture was
dependent on the vagaries of the weather and
Zimbabwe suffered from some long droughts. It
was also dependent on world prices, and the rise
in the cost of oil had a bad effect here as else-
where. The mining sector did less well, and state
planning and high taxation impeded economic
growth. A number of financial scandals implicated
Mugabe’s ministers, and there was some financial
mismanagement. The bureaucracy was also inef-
ficient. Mugabe’s political skills did not extend to
the handling of the economy.
But this did not affect the judgement of the
electorate that he remained indispensable as pres-
ident. In 1990 the ZAPU–ZANU party won a
landslide victory and Mugabe was overwhelm-
ingly endorsed as president. He could feel secure,
ended the 25-year-old state of emergency and
underlined his non-racist approach by appointing
a white lawyer to the position of chief justice.
After 1990 Zimbabwe tried to follow the
market prescription of Western institutions,
causing severe economic difficulties in the short
term. The drought in 1992 had a disastrous
effect, with over a million people in the country-
side having to rely on aid for survival until the
rains allowed a new harvest to be brought in.
However, the government for a time was able to
cope better than elsewhere in Central Africa.
Ageing authoritarian leaders begin to worry
more about their grip on power than their place
in history. The transformation of 80-year-old
Mugabe was startling in the later 1990s. A ruthless
streak was always there, but in the early years of his
presidency he displayed pragmatism in his dealings
with the white farmers and businessmen who were
the backbone of Zimbabwe’s economy. Mugabe
altered the constitution of 1979 gradually grasping
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