HARARE (AFP) — Morgan Tsvangirai, the man President Robert Mugabe has promised will never rule in his lifetime, has survived two treason charges and a beating by security services in his long effort to topple his rival.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, a thorn in the side of 84-year-old Mugabe since the 1990s, ended his campaign for the June 27 presidential run-off on Sunday, saying extreme violence had made a fair vote impossible.
Tsvangirai, 56, had initially said he was only participating in the run-off under protest since he claimed he won an outright majority in the March 29 first round of the election.
Official results showed him beating Mugabe, but with a vote total just short of the 50 percent threshold.
Beyond that, Tsvangirai argues he also won the 2002 presidential election, when he officially polled 1.2 million votes against Mugabe's 1.6 million.
"We in the MDC cannot ask them to cast their vote on the 27th when that vote would cost them their lives," Tsvangirai said when announcing his withdrawal on Sunday.
"We will no longer participate in the violent illegitimate sham of an election process."
Tsvangirai says members of his party have fallen victim to "state sponsored brutality" with the backing of Mugabe and has claimed the country is now run by what is essentially a "military junta".
He was detained five times while seeking to campaign for the run-off, including once for nearly nine hours before being released without charge.
His party's number two leader, Tendai Biti, is in jail on treason and vote-rigging charges and faces the death penalty in a case the opposition calls harassment.
Disillusioned by the outcome in 2002, Tsvangirai appeared reluctant to join the contest this year before eventually deciding to throw his hat into the ring in February.
The economic meltdown in Zimbabwe -- where inflation stands at more than 165,000 percent and unemployment at more than 80 percent -- should have in theory played into the opposition's hands.
But Mugabe had already answered the question of whether he would go quietly if he lost, saying the opposition would never come to power in his lifetime and pledging to fight to keep it from happening.
Tsvangirai first took on Mugabe when, as secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, he led a series of crippling strikes against high taxes in 1997 and 1998.
His protests were not appreciated by his foes. He claims to have been the target of four assassination attempts, including one in 1997 when assailants tried to throw him out of his office window.
Formed in September 1999, the MDC took almost half the seats in legislative elections the following year in spite of campaign violence in which around 30 supporters were killed.
Tsvangirai's career almost came to a halt in 2001 when he went on trial for allegedly plotting to kill Mugabe in a case based on testimony by a former Israeli secret agent. He was eventually cleared.
Two years later, he was slapped with a second charge of treason for calling on party supporters to overthrow the government in a case which was thrown out of court before going to trial.
In March 2007, he was among dozens of opposition supporters assaulted as they tried to stage an anti-government rally, suffering head injuries.
"Yes, they brutalised my flesh. But they will never break my spirit. I will soldier on until Zimbabwe is free," he said in a message from his hospital bed.
His opponents however ridicule talk of bravery by a man who took no part in the country's 1970s liberation war.
"My first priority was my responsibility to the family... I never considered leaving (to join the war) except for a few wistful moments," he was quoted as saying in a recent biography.
Born in Gutu, south of the capital, he is the eldest of nine children and the son of a bricklayer.
After school, he spent 10 years at the Trojan Nickel mine in Mashonaland Central province, rising to become general foreman before having his first taste of politics.
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