Word: nkomo
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...initial moves was to reforge his old links with Joshua Nkomo, 62, his former co-leader in the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance. Running on a separate platform, the bulky, jovial Nkomo had won only 20 seats, mostly in his Matabele tribal stronghold. He accepted Mugabe's invitation to join forces with him in a "national front" coalition. Nkomo was reportedly offered Zimbabwe's figurehead presidency, but he may hold out for a Cabinet post...
...some degree, the blacks were voting for a cause and a symbol rather than a candidate. Mugabe has little personal magnetism. He lacks the easy humor and earthiness of Nkomo, and seems temperamentally unsuited to the rough and tumble of African politics. His personal regimen is ascetic: he sleeps only three or four hours a night, does a daily 45-minute workout of yoga and calisthenics, eats monastically light meals, neither smokes nor drinks. Shy and contemplative, he is not a rousing platform speaker, and in fact did less active campaigning than any other major candidate...
...October 1976, Mugabe formed the Patriotic Front alliance with Nkomo, whose smaller, Soviet-armed Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) was operating out of bases in Zambia. Last fall, the Patriotic Front co-leaders met with representatives of the biracial Muzorewa government for an all-parties peace conference at London's Lancaster House. Chaired by British Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington, the 15-week talks produced a majority-rule constitution, a cease-fire accord and a transitional plan that temporarily returned the country to British colonial rule...
...power, skeptics said he would leave hastily in a helicopter, tossing out the name of the next prime minister on a slip of paper. The tension between blacks and whites, between the acting Prime Minister Abel Muzorewa and the two leaders of the Patriotic Front, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, seemed too intense for anyone to prevent it from flaring into renewed civil war. Moreover, the logistical problems seemed insurmountable--cajoling more than 70,000 former black guerrillas of the Patriotic Front to 14 assembly points around the country; securing their guns and their trust; and ensuring that the subsequent...
...legislature, a strong madate over any white designs for control as well as those of opposing black parties. But Mugabe insists that he will form a broad-based government, composed of his former opposition of both blacks and whites. He will most likely offer his primary black opponent, Nkomo, the cabinet post of Minister of Home Affairs, and see that whites receive their agreed-upon 20 seats in the legislature and two posts in the cabinet. He has made further assurances to the whites--three per cent of the country's population--vowing not to undermine their wealth and power...