Downfall of the world's oldest dictator

The man who has ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years looks set to be deposed after a shock coup was orchestrated by the vice president he sacked last week.

But how did the world's oldest dictator come to hold so much power for so long - and what influenced him to become the infamous tyrant of his later years?

Robert Gabriel Mugabe was born on February 21, 1924 at a Catholic mission village near Southern Rhodesia's capital city, Salisbury.

His father, Gabriel Matibiri, was a carpenter and his mother, Bona, was a religious teacher.
Raised by Jesuits, the young Mugabe was instilled with an austere sense of self-discipline from the beginning of his life.

African Head Of State Robert Mugabe during a summit Of The Organisation Of African Unity In Libreville, Gabon in 1977. Photo / Getty

When he was 10, his father walked out on the family, and in his absence an Irish Catholic who praised opponents of the British Empire - of which Mugabe was a subject - became a major influence on his life.

Father Jerome O'Hea also preached a philosophy of racial equality as well teaching him about the Irish War of Independence and how revolutionaries had seized their country back from the British.

Father O'Hea doted on Mugabe, telling his mother that one day he would be "an important somebody" and a "leader".

His mother is said to have believed Father O'Hea had brought that prophecy from God, putting his needs above his five siblings.

Before he died in 1970, Father O'Hea said his former pupil had "an exceptional mind and an exceptional heart".

Robert Mugabe with former Taoiseach of Ireland Garrett Fitzgerald at a State reception at Dublin Castle during Mugabe's three-day visit to Ireland in September 1983. Photo / Getty

Mugabe was described as a loner, and a studious child known to carry a book even while tending cattle in the bush.

After his time at the mission, he trained as a teacher - with his tuition fees paid for partly by Father O'Hea.

He qualified as a teacher at the age of 17, later studying at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa's future black nationalist leaders.

It was during this period that Mugabe was introduced to Marxism by South African communists.

He later embraced Marxist doctrine, but claimed that his biggest influence was Mohandas Gandhi because of his behaviour during the Indian struggle for independence.

When he returned to Southern Rhodesia in 1952, he was "completely hostile" to European imperialism.

He headed to Ghana to teach in 1958, where he was influenced by president Kwame Nkrumah.

The Prince of Wales receiving an Independence Medal from Robert Mugabe, the Prime Minister of the newly independent Zimbabwe, during a dinner at Government House, Salisbury in 1980. Photo / Getty

Mugabe said he went to the country as an "adventurist" because he wanted to see what an independent African state looked like (Ghana was the first nation in the continent to win freedom from a European power).

While there, he attended the Kwame Nkrumah Ideological Institute in Winneba and later claimed that it was while he was in Ghana that fully embraced Marxism.

Mugabe returned to his homeland and was detained for his nationalist activities in 1964 before spending the next 10 years in prison camps or jails.

During his incarceration, he gained three degrees through correspondence - but the years in prison left their mark.

His 4-year-old son by his first wife, Ghanaian-born Sally Francesca Hayfron, died while he was behind bars.

Robert Mugabe addresses the Millennium Development Goals summit on September 21, 2010 at the UN. Photo / Getty

Rhodesian leader Ian Smith denied him leave to attend the funeral.

During the struggle against white rule, Mugabe was famous as a propagandist.

He made frequent radio speeches during which he praised communist revolutionaries, including Vladimir Lenin, Fidel Castro and mass murderers Josef Stalin and Mao Zedong.
Mugabe also repeatedly called for violence against white people in Rhodesia, lashing out at them in racist rants as being "blood-sucking exploiters" and "sadistic killers".

In one particularly racist speech, he said: "Let us hammer [the white man] to defeat. Let us blow up his citadel. Let us give him no time to rest. Let us chase him in every corner. Let us rid our home of this settler vermin."

When the war was won, the country freed and renamed Zimbabwe, Mugabe swept to power in 1980 elections.

A violent insurgency and economic sanctions had forced the Rhodesian government to the negotiating table.

In office he initially won international plaudits for his declared policy of racial reconciliation and for extending improved education and health services to the black majority.

But his lustre faded quickly.

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, left, and his wife Grace during a youth rally in Marondera Zimbabwe in June 2017. Photo / AP

Mugabe took control of one wing in the guerrilla war for independence - the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) and its armed forces - after his release from prison in 1974.

His partner in the armed struggle - the leader of the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), Joshua Nkomo - was one of the early casualties of Mugabe's crackdown on dissent.

Nkomo was dismissed from government, where he held the home affairs portfolio, after the discovery of an arms cache in his Matabeleland province stronghold in 1982.

Mugabe, whose party drew most of its support from the ethnic Shona majority, then unleashed his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade on Nkomo's Ndebele people in a campaign known as Gukurahundi that killed an estimated 20,000 suspected dissidents.

It was the seizure of white-owned farms nearly two decades later that would complete Mugabe's transformation from darling of the West into international pariah - though his status as a liberation hero still resonates in many parts of Africa.

Aimed largely at placating angry war veterans who threatened to destabilise his rule, the land reform policy wrecked the crucial agricultural sector, caused foreign investors to flee and helped plunge the country into economic misery.

At the same time, critics say, Mugabe clung to power through increased repression of human rights and by rigging elections.

Mugabe had two sons and a daughter by second wife Grace.

First Lady of Zimbabwe Grace Mugabe attends Fashion 4 Development's 7th Annual First Ladies Luncheon at The Pierre Hotel on September 19, 2017 in New York City. Photo / Getty

The First Lady has been viewed as a front-runner to succeed her husband after decades of his vice-like grip on power.

"His real obsession was not with personal wealth but with power," said biographer Martin Meredith.

"Year after year Mugabe sustained his rule through violence and repression - crushing political opponents, violating the courts, trampling on property rights, suppressing the independent press and rigging elections."

Mugabe once quipped that he'd rule his country until he turned 100.

But, aged 93, his grip on power seems to be ebbing as tensions erupt between his loyal ZANU-PF party and the military that has helped keep him in office.

First heralded as a liberator who rid the former British colony Rhodesia of white minority rule, Mugabe was soon cast in the role of a despot who crushed political dissent and ruined the national economy.

"He was a great leader whose leadership degenerated to a level where he really brought Zimbabwe to its knees," said University of South Africa professor Shadrack Gutto.

Britain's former foreign secretary Peter Carrington knew Mugabe well, having mediated the Lancaster House talks that paved the way for Zimbabwe's independence.

"Mugabe wasn't human at all," Carrington told biographer Heidi Holland. "There was a sort of reptilian quality about him.

"You could admire his skills and intellect... but he was an awfully slippery sort of person."

In the final decades of his rule, Mugabe - one of the world's most recognisable leaders with his thin stripe of moustache and thick-rimmed spectacles - has embraced his new role as the antagonist of the West.

Zimbabwean President, Robert Mugabe, right welcomes South African President, Jacob Zuma, left, at Harare International airport in August 2009. Photo / AP

He used blistering rhetoric to blame his country's downward spiral on Western sanctions, though they were targeted personally at Mugabe and his henchmen rather than at Zimbabwe's economy.

"If people say you are dictator... you know they are saying this merely to tarnish and demean your status, then you don't pay much attention," he said in a 2013 documentary.

After decades in which the subject of succession was virtually taboo, a vicious struggle to take over after his death became apparent among the party elite as he reached his 90s and became visibly frail.

People from Zimbabwe seen celebrating outside the Zimbabwe embassy after the house arrest of Robert Mugabe and the army take over, on November 15, 2017 in London. Photo / Getty

Soldiers man their position with a military vehicle outside the office of President Robert Mugabe, in Harare, yesterday. Photo / Getty

He had been rumoured for years to have prostate cancer, but according to the official account, his frequent trips to Singapore were related to his treatment for cataracts.

Mugabe's second wife Grace - his former secretary who is 41 years his junior and has been seen as a potential successor - boasted that even in his 80s he would rise before dawn to work out.

"It's true I was dead. I resurrected as I always do once I get back to my country. I am real again," he joked in 2016 after returning from a foreign trip, mocking rumours that he had died.

But in his later years, he has stumbled and fallen more than once and delivered the wrong speech at the opening of parliament last year.