Zimbabwe: New hope?

Seventeen years ago a militant University of Zimbabwe student leader, Arthur Mutambara, and the radical national trades union leader Morgan Tsvangirai openly criticised the way the country was being governed by President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU PF government. The two were among the first Zimbabweans to experience the wrath of Mugabe against his critics as popular discontent began to stir. They were arrested in October 1989 following a series of anti-corruption demonstrations which led to the first-ever closure of the Harare-based University of Zimbabwe. Today Mutambara, 39, and Tsvangirai, 53, are radical opponents, each leading rival factions of the badly split opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, which for years was Zimbabweans' main hope of political change in their country. Whichever faction eventually triumphs will decide which man gets the chance to topple the ZANU PF government and become only Zimbabwe's second state president since independence in 1980.