Electoral officials prepare to count ballots at a polling station following the end of voting in Chinamhora, near Harare, Zimbabwe, March 29, 2008. President Robert Mugabe confronted the toughest challenge to his 28-year rule in the 2008 elections, which the opposition said were rigged before polls opened. (Mujahid Safodien/Associated Press)

Around 5000 BC, the indigenous hunter-gatherer San people moved into southeast Africa. Millennia later, in 1000 AD, the San were displaced by migrations of the Bantu. By 1840, the Bantu were joined by the Zulu-related Ndebele. These two tribes lived as cattle herders and crop-growers, fighting over land and power.

Things changed dramatically in what was to become Zimbabwe when the famous British adventurer Cecil John Rhodes received his royal charter to establish the British South Africa Company (BSAC) with all the powers of a government. This led to the white settlement of most of the region, called Rhodesia by the British colonials, by 1890.

By that time, there were two main indigenous peoples — the Shona and the Ndebele. They buried their hostilities and joined forces to launch the first Chimurenga (Shona for "liberation war") from 1896-97 against the British occupation. Thousands died before the BSAC and British troops overwhelmed the fighters.

Under the BSAC, and later the British Crown, huge tracts of the best farmland were allocated to the settlers while the Shona and Ndebele were forced to become farm labourers or were herded onto dusty tracts of land known as "African reserves."

A 1925 land commission recommended segregation, which was legalized in 1930 under the Land Apportionment Act. Non-white Africans were given 12 million hectares of low-rainfall, arid, hilly land out of 40 million arable hectares in the country, known by this time as Southern Rhodesia. The country's 48,000 white settlers, of whom 11,000 were farmers, were given 20 million hectares of lush farmland to raise cattle and grow sugar, tobacco, corn, and, later, exotic fruits and flowers for export.

Enter Mugabe

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe attends Defence Forces Day Commemorations in Harare, Aug. 14, 2007. (AP Photo)

Zimbabwe, one of the smallest countries in southern Africa with 390,245 square kilometres, gained independence from Britain in 1980 after a 17-year war fought mainly between black liberation movements and the 250,000 white Rhodesians. The war, one of the most vicious in Africa, was over land and its fair redistribution.

Rebel leader Robert Mugabe became the country's first president in a post-independence landslide election victory for his ZANU-PF party. He offered reconciliation to white farmers and roughly 100,000 stayed.

The British and U.S. governments offered to buy land from white settlers who could not accept Mugabe's offer. A fund estimated at $2 billion was established and used to buy some land to redistribute to landless peasants, but very few were resettled. However, hundreds of abandoned and expropriated formerly white-owned farms ended up in the hands of cabinet ministers, senior government officials and wealthy indigenous businessmen.

The ensuing elections were fought on the land issue, with ZANU-PF promising more and more to peasants, but after the campaigns, the issue of resettlement always faded into the background.

After the 1995 election, a group of lawyers, academics, economists and businesspeople began to push for a new constitution and new politics with land a key issue. Plans were drawn up to begin the resettlement of peasants. Even the white Commercial Farmers Union participated, promising its expertise and the turnover of underutilized land. The union also pointed out that the government was the greatest underutilizer with "millions of acres lying idle while the elites who own the land live in urban mansions."

Drawn together by the militant Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and its leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a new political opposition with some clout began to emerge, especially among the poverty-stricken and jobless in the urban slums and squatter camps.

They formed a National Constitutional Assembly to draw up a new constitution. The NCA would focus on land reform and it would spend many hours in the communal lands hearing from the black farmers.

Opposition takes root

Mugabe ran his own constitutional commission in 1999 and came up with a document in three months that would further entrench presidential powers, but with a land clause that still refused him powers of absolute expropriation without compensation. The country voted against it in February 2000.

Mugabe's popularity waned. Relations with the British were at an all-time low. Zimbabwe's decision to send troops in support of President Laurent Kabila in Congo since 1998 was draining $1 million a day from the government's coffers. Unemployment was around 65 per cent, inflation about the same, the Zimdollar had collapsed, investment had fled and corruption known about for years had become a public issue.

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) — led by Tsvangirai — became a real threat.

Mugabe turned to his old comrades, the Liberation War Veterans Association, to whom he had paid billions of dollars in 1998 to keep them quiet as they demanded land and money. He forked over $4 billion in unbudgeted money to keep them happy and that, say economists, is when the dollar collapsed and the economy crashed.

The veterans — and many hangers-on paid by the ruling party — began their increasingly violent campaign of farm invasions. By April 2000, some Mugabe backers said more than 1,000 farms had been occupied by 60,000 "war veterans." The opposition said half of the "veterans" weren't even born in 1980, when independence was achieved.

That harvest season, Zimbabwe was hammered by extreme weather. Many crops rotted in the fields, others couldn't be brought in because of the invasions. And at the time, squatters wanting to disrupt the country's economy further warned farmers not to sell their tobacco. Tobacco sales generate about 35 per cent of Zimbabwe's sparse foreign exchange.

As parliament was dissolved before the 2000 election, it passed legislation giving the government absolute rights to seize any farmland. Mugabe supported what the courts had called illegal three times, by urging the war veterans to keep invading, while subtly ordering the police not to intervene.

In the violence-fraught 2000 elections, Mugabe's party managed to win a majority with 62 seats, plus the 30 that Mugabe gets to appoint as president. It was a substantial drop from the 147 out of 150 seats the ZANU-PF held going in to the election. The opposition MDC stunned Mugabe as it took 57 seats. Another party, ZANU-N, won one seat.

Main opposition MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) leader Morgan Tsvangirai addresses supporters during an election rally near Harare, March 27, 2008. (Associated Press)

In 2002, Mugabe won a third term as president in an election that international observers concluded was rigged. He managed 57 per cent of the vote in a battle against Tsvangirai. In the closing days of the campaign, Tsvangirai was charged with treason, accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe. He was acquitted more than two years later.

Following the election, the Commonwealth suspended Zimbabwe for 18 months. Mugabe responded by pulling out of the organization.

In the 2005 elections, Mugabe's ZANU-PF party won a two-thirds majority. Following the win, the party amended the constitution and reinstated the Senate, which had been abolished in the late 1980s, as Zimbabwe's Upper House.

In April 2005, the government launched a UN-condemned urban rationalization program, called Operation Restore Order, which led to the destruction of homes and businesses in urban slums, leaving an estimated 700,000 people homeless, according to United Nations numbers. The government said it was an effort to crack down on criminal activity and the black market.

2008 elections posed the most serious challenge to Mugabe

Mugabe instituted price controls on all basic commodities, causing frantic bouts of purchasing and empty store shelves, in 2007.

That same year, a new constitutional amendment came into effect allowing for harmonized elections — allowing voters to cast ballots for the president, parliament, senate and local representatives on the same day — and shortening the length of the presidential term to five years.

The election on March 29, 2008, was the first for the new voting system, and was considered by many to be the most serious challenge Mugabe had faced in 28 years of rule. Mugabe, now 84, faced backlash from an economic collapse that had seen the inflation rate soar above 100,000 per cent and unemployment levels at 80 per cent. Zimbabweans were also coping with chronic shortages of food, medicine and fuel, as well as power outages.

A Human Rights Watch report said a fair election would be difficult due to serious electoral flaws, human rights abuses and widespread intimidation by Mugabe supporters, citing at least 12 incidents of the intimidation between September 2007 and February 2008. As well, the report, released just over a week before the election, criticized the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission as inadequately prepared, under-resourced and biased towards the ruling party.

"Zimbabweans aren't free to vote for the candidates of their choice," said the organization's Africa director, Georgette Gagnon, who called the election process "skewed."

With riot police dispatched around the capital city of Harare among fears of violence, voters cast their ballots for president, parliament, senate and local representatives on March 29.

The South African Development Community's observer mission said the elections were "in general a free expression of the people of Zimbabwe." However, observers say the official rolls in some districts were inflated with large numbers of phantom voters, and opposition reports suggest hundreds of Mugabe's opponents were turned away at the polls.

Zimbabweans watch the results of weekend elections being broadcast on state television in Harare, March 31, 2008. The opposition MDC claimed a wide lead in the country's presidential and parliamentary balloting, but only a few official results were released, heightening fears a regime fighting off charges it ruined the economy and undermined democracy planned to hold onto power through rigging. (Associated Press)

By two days after the election, on March 31, the final vote count still hadn't been announced and many in the country suggested the silence was a sign of vote rigging and fraud. Judge George Chiweshe, the election commission's chairman, blamed the delay on the expanded number of ballots that needed to be counted, since each voter cast four instead of one.

When the vote finally did come in, Tsvangirai had the most votes, but did not win by the margin necessary to avoid a run-off against second-place finisher Mugabe. The run-off vote was scheduled for June 27, but Tsvangirai withdrew because of attacks on his supporters blamed on Mugabe's party militants and security forces.

Mugabe went ahead with the run-off and was declared the overwhelming winner, though the exercise was widely denounced.

Facing a political crisis, Tsvangirai and Mugabe began power-sharing talks on July 21. The negotiations broke off and Mugabe was sworn in as president the following week.

A 'new era' begins?

But diplomatic efforts continued and South African President Thabo Mbeki stepped in to mediate another round of talks. The negotiations stalled many times over the issue of who would lead the government, but they eventually produced a deal, signed on Sept. 15.

Mbeki said that, under the deal, Mugabe remains president while Tsvangirai becomes prime minister. The head of a breakaway MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara, becomes deputy prime minister. Mugabe retains control of the military while Tsvangirai controls the police.

Zimbabwean state radio reported that, as part of the deal, the opposition will also get more cabinet posts than the ruling party.

After the deal was signed, Tsvangirai thanked members of Parliament for their willingness to make the unity government work. "If you were my enemy yesterday, today we are bound by the same patriotic duty and destiny," he said.

For their part, Zimbabweans expressed cautious optimism that the deal will allow the political rivals to begin to solve the severe economic problems facing their country, where inflation has skyrocketed and fuel, food and hospital supplies are in short supply.

Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs said the deal signals this desire for change.

"This agreement can begin a new era of political, economic and social recovery in Zimbabwe," said a statement posted on the department's website. But in Zimbabwe, which has seen so much tumult in recent years, little can be taken for granted.

"Will it [the deal] hold or will it not? That is the question," said Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete.