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Morgan Tsvangirai

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Did anyone consider him for this years list?

 

 

Just found out he was one of only 2 people who have ever been Prime Minister of Zimbabwe. No prizes for guessing who the other one was ! 

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15 hours ago, Éricles Souza said:

What a pity. Now that Mugabe is out of power, Tsvangirai could take the presidency in this year's elections

 

I have a lot of friends from Zimbabwe (or Rhodesia as they’d prefer). They suggest that the media in the UK raised Tsvangirai up as some kind of hero who was going to save Zimbabwe from Mugabe when in reality both men were completely corrupt. 

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Well, that's a given. Our press (and government) have always gone for the "enemy of my enemy is my friend" policy, even when it comes back to bite us time and time again.

 

As for Tsvangirai, was he corrupt? Probably. I mean, he was a politician who nearly got to the top of the greasy pole, that's surely a given. In some African countries (not all), doubly so. But beyond that, I think he was fairly brave to put his head above the parapet as a Mugabe alternative, even if it was for personal gain, especially post the early 2000s crackdowns. I doubt he'd ever have become President, because he had the chance in 2008, and gave it up. Lacked that killer instinct, literally.  If he'd held firm, he'd likely have toppled Mugabe, at the cost of likely several thousand dead. Perhaps he was worried about his own skin, I don't know, never met him. One can only go with his public reason for now, and it holds better than Rab Butler's completely bottling it in 57.

 

Anyhow, likely a man neither a saint nor an outright villain by political standards, but I dare say he probably managed his role better than any of our government would have in his place, or the sycophantic Blairite wing of the Labour party (Corbyn's lot goes without saying here, but I mean the ones who think they'd all be brilliant leaders because they nodded at a Tony Blair speech once, despite all evidence to the contrary - see Chuka Umuna)...

 

 

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Tsvangirai might not have been an angel but he was easily the lesser of two evils. BTW @Ulitzer95 the fact that they prefer Zimbabwe to be called Rhodensia strongly hints towards the fact that they want an apartheid government back. 

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In my opinion, the fact that he was willing to spend time in prison and get beaten definitely shows that he had courage. I think he legitimately did have some care for the people, cause he definitely seem passionate in his speeches. That said, was he corrupt? Almost certainly, almost all politicians were somewhat corrupt. Did he do it for his own personal gain? Probably to an extent. But he's definitely one of the good guys in Africa even though he wasn't by any means the best political leader out there...

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4 hours ago, Mad Hatter2 said:

BTW @Ulitzer95 the fact that they prefer Zimbabwe to be called Rhodensia strongly hints towards the fact that they want an apartheid government back. 

 

No. Most of them knew it as Rhodesia before it was Zimbabwe and remember how prosperous the nation was before Mugabe destroyed it. That’s why they call it Rhodesia. Nothing to do with race or imperialism. I’m fact, one of them is black. 

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