Edgar Tekere

Edgar "2-Boy" Zivanai Tekere died noon on Tuesday 7 June 2011, at Murambi Clinic, in Mutare, Manicaland. This occurred following a long battle with prostate cancer, and had a medical history of suffering from undiagnosed post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a military war veteran which brought about erratic intermittent alcoholism behaviour tendencies. With recent evidence based research on PTSD military veterans from the Iraqi & Afghanistan Wars, there is more understanding of PTSD and how it affects the military veterans when they integrate into civil society post-war. Tekere was 74 years old.

In his book "The Other – without fear, favour or prejudice" Greenland reveals, for the first time in 2010, that Judge Pitman made a surprising and inexplicable "about-face", having first been firmly of the view that Tekere was entitled to the indemnity and then changing his mind without proffering good reason.

On Sunday, 16 August 2009, at Sakubva Stadium in Mutare in Manicaland, Tekere was the guest of honour for the MDC in front of a crowd of 40,000 people that gathered to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the founding of the MDC, led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

At a rally on 2 March 2008 in Highfield, a suburb of Harare, Tekere endorsed Simba Makoni, an independent candidate who was running against Mugabe in the March 2008 presidential election. Tekere said that he was "appointing [him]self principal campaigner for Mugabe's downfall".

In 2005, he voiced his wish to stand as a ZANU (PF) candidate for the Senate of Zimbabwe but was rebuffed. In 2006 it was reported that he had rejoined ZANU (PF). A letter sent to him by ZANU (PF) national chairman John Nkomo dated 7 April 2006 said, "You will not exercise your right to be elected to any office in the party for a period of five years. You will be required to uphold all the duties of a member listed in Article 3, Section 18 of the amended Zanu PF constitution".

Tekere dropped out of sight after the election, which fuelled rumours that he had been planted as an opposition figure. In 1993, he attended a meeting with former white Prime Minister Ian Smith, former Mugabe ally Ndabaningi Sithole and Abel Muzorewa in which the formation of a unified movement to oppose Mugabe's government was discussed.

He ran against Robert Mugabe in the 1990 Presidential race as the candidate of the Zimbabwe Unity Movement, offering a broadly free market platform against Mugabe's communist-style economic planning. Edgar Tekere received unprecedented support for his opposition to Mugabe which led to massive election rigging by ZANU in order for Mugabe to win the election on 1 April 1990 receiving 2,026,976 votes while Tekere only got 413,840 (16% of the vote). At the simultaneous Parliamentary elections the ZUM won 20% of the vote but only two seats in the House of Assembly. Zimbabwe Unity Movement supporters were the targets of violent attacks from supporters of ZANU (PF) and five candidates were murdered.

Tekere supported Mugabe at the 1985 elections but by October 1988 his consistent criticism of corruption resulted in his expulsion from the party. When Mugabe voiced his belief that Zimbabwe would be better governed as a one party state, Tekere strongly disagreed, saying "A one-party state was never one of the founding principles of ZANU-PF and experience in Africa has shown that it brought the evils of nepotism, corruption and inefficiency."

After criticising corruption in the party, in August 1984 Tekere was elected to the Central Committee of ZANU-PF and carried shoulder-high from the Congress; he was also being supported by the White Zimbabwean community after opposing the farm squats by ZANU-PF supporters which he described as "donga watonga" (chaotic government). He was provincial chairman of ZANU-PF in Mutare.

Tekere was dismissed from the government on 11 January 1981, a decision he was reported to be happy with; he retained the Secretary-Generalship of ZANU. In April 1981 he was detained by Kenyan security forces to prevent him from speaking to students after giving a newspaper interview in which he said he was proud of the killing of Gerald Adams. In July, Tekere referred to some ZANU representatives as having "inherited the colonial mentality," which was straining relations between them and the party's supporters. Mugabe hit back by saying "Those who are complaining that the revolution is not continuing... are the most immoral and laziest in the party." Tekere was increasingly seen as a leader of a rival faction to Mugabe, and was dismissed as Secretary-General on 9 August with Mugabe taking the post himself.

When ZANU won the 1980 elections, Tekere was appointed as Minister of Manpower Planning in Mugabe's Cabinet. He followed his appointment by making a series of outspoken speeches that went far beyond government policy. Shortly after his appointment, on 4 August 1980 he greeted then-Prime Minister Mugabe and visiting President of Mozambique Samora Machel in combat fatigues, announcing that he was going "to fight a battle." Tekere and his bodyguards went looking for supporters of Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU outside Harare but, failing to find them, went onto a neighbouring farm and shot white farm manager Gerald Adams.."

Edgar Zivanai "2-Boy" (nom de guerre) Tekere was an early ally of Robert Mugabe within the Zimbabwe African National Union (of which he was a founder member in 1964) during the fight for independence and against the Rhodesian Front government of Ian Smith. Mugabe and Tekere, having served eleven and a half years in Hwa-Hwa Penitentiary & Gonakudzingwa State Prison as political prisoners of Ian Smith's government, immediately left upon release and crossed the Eastern Highlands Border in Mutare through the mountains by foot, following the Gairezi river trail to Seguranza military camp in Mozambique, to mastermind and kickstart guerilla warfare, aided by Samora Machel, in 1975. The Bush War or Second Chimurenga raged on. harassment of Tekere's close family members and relatives by the platoon of Rhodesian Front Soldiers, Selous Scouts, Police Special Branch and Central Intelligence Organisation, under the auspices of Ian Smith.

Edgar Zivanai Tekere (1 April 1937 – 7 June 2011), nicknamed "2 Boy", was a Zimbabwean politician. He was the second and last Secretary General of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) who organised the party during the Lancaster House talks and served in government before his popularity as a potential rival to Robert Mugabe caused their estrangement.