Robert Mugabe: Ruler of Zimbabwe for 37 years

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was 56 years old when he was sworn in as the first prime minister of the newly created Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980.

He ruled through the 80s, the 90s and was there at the turn of the century.

In 2017, at the age of 93, President Mugabe was still the official leader of Zimbabwe, the only head of state the southern African country has known.

But he has not exactly been in charge for the past week.

On November 15, the country's military took control after what some called a "bloodless correction" and others a coup.

Mugabe resisted calls to step down for almost a week, even making a public appearance after being placed under house arrest.

The army insisted it was not staging a coup, but was rather intervening temporarily to target "criminals around President Mugabe."

Whether a coup, a "correction", or something else, the military's action did not leave much room for Mugabe to cling on to power after 37 years at the helm.

Zimbabwe's era of Mugabe-rule officially ended on November 21 amid impeachment proceedings, initiated by the governing ZANU PF and seconded by the main opposition party, in the country's parliament.

The 'thinking man's guerrilla'

Mugabe was once revered as the "thinking man's guerrilla," an intellectual at the forefront of southern Africa's black nationalist leaders.

He was born on February 21, 1924 into a Catholic family at Kutama Mission northwest of Harare, in the self-governing British colony of Southern Rhodesia.

Jesuits educated Robert, a good student, who qualified as a schoolteacher at the age of 17.

He attended the same university in South Africa as that country's independence hero Nelson Mandela, and was influenced by Ghana's founding president Kwame Nkrumah while on a teaching stint there.

Mugabe returned to Rhodesia in 1960 and linked up with Joshua Nkomo who was leading the African nationalist struggle in the colony.

He quickly rose through the ranks and became the publicity secretary of Nkomo's National Democratic Party (NDP).

Mugabe soon came to the attention of Rhodesia's colonial government when the NDP was banned in 1961, and then reformed as the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU).

Mugabe left ZAPU in 1963 to join the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU). That party would later become his Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU PF).

From Rhodesia to Zimbabwe

 In 1964, ZANU too was banned and Mugabe was imprisoned for his nationalist activities and his fight against white rule. He earned several degrees while in prison.

Freed eleven years later, Mugabe left for Mozambique and began rallying loyalists in his party who were already leading a resistance against the white-minority Rhodesian government that had unilaterally declared independence from Britain rather than accept moves to black-majority rule.

He soon became a symbol of that resistance and was pushed back into an alliance with Nkomo by the nationalists.

Mugabe returned to Rhodesia after British-brokered peace talks that ultimately led to the establishment of the Republic of Zimbabwe in 1980.

Hope and a rapid descent

Zimbabwe held its first election the same year, 1980, and Mugabe returned from exile to a sweeping win.

He was seen as a uniting force, reaching out to the white minority, being more accommodating of opposition voices and pushing for education and healthcare reforms.

But soon he was at odds with Nkomo again in a dispute that would eventually claim thousands of lives.

The violence only ended after a Unity Accord between ZANU PF and ZAPU in 1987.

Support for Mugabe was strong but for some in Zimbabwe, he had lost the revolutionary charisma that had propelled him to power.

Presidency and land reforms

After a change in the country's constitution, Mugabe assumed more power as the president in 1988, shortly before the death of his first wife.

The period that followed brought some prosperity for Zimbabwe. Mugabe was named as the winner of an anti-hunger prize, a recognition given to African leaders who worked to increase food production and end hunger.

At the time, Joan Holmes, director of New York-based Hunger Project, said Zimbabwe had become the ''agricultural success story'' of Africa.

Economic collapse

Over a next decade, Zimbabwe's economy began to fail. Defeat in a constitutional referendum in 2000, coupled with growing anger at the slow pace of land reform evoked an uncompromising response from Mugabe.

White-owned farms were taken from their owners. Mugabe termed it a "correction" of colonial injustices. Critics called it theft.

The farm seizures devastated what had been one of Africa's most dynamic economies. The collapse in agricultural foreign exchange earnings unleashed hyperinflation.

From 2000 to 2008, the economy was hit particularly hard, shrinking by more than a third and sending unemployment above 80 percent.

Several million Zimbabweans fled, most to South Africa.

A host of international sanctions were slapped on Zimbabwe, Mugabe, and his wife, Grace.

Disputed elections

In 2008, the year when the country issued a Zimbabwe 100 trillion dollar note and inflation jumped to 500 billion percent, people rallied behind the challenge to Mugabe's rule led by former union leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Facing defeat in a presidential run-off, Mugabe and his loyalists resorted to violence, forcing Tsvangirai to withdraw after scores of his supporters were reportedly killed by ZANU PF members.

An increasingly worried South Africa squeezed Mugabe and Tsvangirai into a fractious unity coalition. But Mugabe maintained his grip on power through his continued control of the army, police and secret service.

Mugabe won disputed elections again in 2013.

But it was his decisions ahead of the 2018 elections that pushed the country's army to step in. 

Grace Mugabe, the Crocodile and General Chiwenga

On November 6, 2017, Mugabe sacked his longtime confidante and Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

Mnangagwa, also known as the "Crocodile" for his ruthlessness during the era of the struggle for liberation, always had close military connections and was seen as the top contender to succeed Mugabe.

His dismissal apparently cleared the way for Mugabe's wife Grace, 52, to become vice president, and perhaps succeed her 93-year-old husband as president.

Grace, leader of the 'G40' (Generation 40) youth faction of the ZANU PF, had openly expressed a desire to step in when the time came to succeed her husband – ambitions not well-received by the military.

Mnangagwa fled the country to South Africa following sacking and expulsion from the ZANU PF.

In his first response to his dismissal, he said the ZANU PF "is not personal property for you [Mugabe] and your wife to do as you please."

Mnangagwa vowed to return to Zimbabwe to lead party members, despite his apparent dismissal from office and the party.

On November 13, the chief of Zimbabwe's army joined the fray.

General Constantino Chiwenga warned the military would intervene to stop what he called a purge of Mugabe's rivals in the ZANU PF, branding as "treacherous shenanigans" the actions of those behind Mnangagwa's ouster and the purges.

Two days later, Mugabe's leadership appeared over, as the army moved into Harare, took control of key institutions, and put the president under house arrest.