Eddison Zvobgo, 68; Ally of Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, Then a Critic

Eddison Zvobgo, 68, a Zimbabwean nationalist leader who was the chief architect of Robert Mugabe’s sweeping powers as state president but later split with Mugabe, died Sunday at a hospital in Harare. No cause of death was reported.

Zvobgo was born in the southern part of what was then Rhodesia. Educated in missionary schools, he earned a scholarship to Tufts University near Boston.

He returned to Zimbabwe in 1963 and was one of the founders of the opposition Zimbabwe African National Union.

A year later, he was arrested by white authorities on political charges. Freed in 1971, he went on to study law at Harvard and later taught law at Lewis University in Illinois.

After transition to majority rule in 1980, Zvobgo served in a number of government posts, including minister of parliamentary and constitutional affairs. It was in that position in 1987 that he helped provide the legal framework that gave Mugabe many of his state powers.

Zvobgo split with Mugabe, however, in the late 1990s when he pushed for constitutional reform and criticized press restrictions and Mugabe’s fast-track redistribution of 5,000 white-owned farms to black Zimbabweans. He left the government in 2000 but remained in the country’s parliament representing the Masvingo area of southern Zimbabwe.

Zvobgo faced censure from within the ruling party for his refusal to campaign for Mugabe in the 2002 elections, which independent observers rejected as a rigged vote.