Prime minister in the unity government

In the months that followed, Mugabe and Tsvangirai could not come to terms on how to implement the agreement, arguing over how to allocate the new government’s key ministries between ZANU-PF and the MDC. Stalled talks and repeated attempts by the SADC to get discussions back on track continued against a backdrop of worsening economic and humanitarian conditions in Zimbabwe. In addition, dozens of MDC supporters, reporters, and human rights activists had disappeared; the MDC alleged that they had been abducted by ZANU-PF- and government-allied forces. International support of continued negotiations for the implementation of the power-sharing government began to wane, with some critics calling for Mugabe to step down from power; he adamantly refused to do so and announced his intention to form a government on his own if Tsvangirai and the MDC would not participate. In late January 2009 Tsvangirai—under pressure from the SADC—agreed to join Mugabe in a new government, despite lingering misgivings. On February 5, 2009, Zimbabwe’s legislature passed the necessary constitutional amendment that altered the structure of the executive branch, allowing for the creation of the prime minister post, and Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister on February 11, 2009.

The unity government was a troubled one: the MDC and ZANU-PF struggled to agree on various appointments, and Tsvangirai denounced ongoing human rights violations. After the jailing of Roy Bennett, a senior MDC official who was to be tried on charges that included terrorism and insurgency, in October 2009 Tsvangirai announced that the MDC would “disengage” from the unity government. Shortly after Tsvangirai’s announcement, Bennett was released on bail. The acrimonious nature of the unity government continued into the following years. A new constitution, initially expected to have been drafted and put to referendum by 2011, was delayed by ongoing disagreements between the parties of Tsvangirai and Mugabe and was not approved until 2013. Elections for a new government to succeed the one formed by the GPA were expected to follow the promulgation of the constitution, once certain democratic reforms were in place. To the chagrin of Tsvangirai as well as others, a Constitutional Court ruling led to a decree from Mugabe in early June calling for elections to be held at the end of the following month, before the reforms had been enacted.

2013 elections

Although the run-up to the elections was relatively peaceful, it was rife with problems and concerns that the electoral commission was not ready to hold the polls. The presidential and parliamentary elections were held on July 31, 2013, and although the voting process proceeded peacefully, there were many complaints of voting irregularities, most of which appeared to put Tsvangirai and the MDC at a disadvantage. Even before the final results were released, Tsvangirai and his party had dismissed the election as a sham and invalid. In the event, Mugabe was declared the winner with some 61 percent of the vote, and Tsvangirai was said to have received about 34 percent. Tsvangirai and the MDC contested the results, filing a petition with the Constitutional Court that called for the presidential election to be declared null and a new one to be held within 60 days. They also filed petitions with the High Court to gain access to election data, which they planned to use as evidence in their Constitutional Court case, but the High Court did not issue a ruling in a timely manner. This prompted Tsvangirai and the MDC to withdraw their case with the Constitutional Court, as they claimed they would not be able to receive a fair hearing without the requested evidence. The Constitutional Court refused to dismiss the petition, however, and ruled that Mugabe was the legitimate winner of the election. Tsvangirai and the MDC boycotted Mugabe’s August inauguration to protest the election proceedings.

Party discord and declining health

In April 2014 rumours of internal strife within the MDC were confirmed when a faction of the party led by Biti announced that it had expelled Tsvangirai from the party. This claim was quickly countered by Tsvangirai, who denounced the illegality of Biti’s actions and, in turn, expelled him and his faction from the party. The party later asked the speaker of parliament to expel the MDC legislators who had defected to Biti’s faction, since they no longer represented the party under which they had been elected. After legal issues had been settled, in March 2015 the speaker did just that, expelling a group of 17 National Assembly members and 4 senators that included Biti and others who had aligned themselves with Biti’s new party. Meanwhile, at the MDC’s party congress in November 2014, Tsvangirai was reelected president of the party.

In 2016 Tsvangirai announced that he had colon cancer and was undergoing treatment for it. In the following years, there were conflicting reports about the state of his health, and rumours periodically circulated. In early February 2018 Tsvangirai was reported to be near death, but he quickly took to social media to deny that. A week later, however, he passed away.