Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, who has had a stranglehold on power for nearly three decades, has agreed to do what many believed he never would: hand over some of his authority to his bitter rival.

The 84-year-old, who has ruled since independence from Britain in 1980, will remain president and be responsible for chairing cabinet under the power-sharing deal, sources close to the talks said.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will be prime minister and chair of a council of ministers in the agreement brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki that aims to end a ruinous political crisis.

Any true sharing of power would mark a sharp change for Mugabe, who has vowed in the past that the opposition would never rule in his lifetime.

Mugabe was re-elected to a sixth term in a one-man vote in June after Tsvangirai withdrew, citing state-sponsored violence against his supporters.

In staging the ballot, Mugabe defied calls from world and regional leaders to postpone it.

He shrugged off his rival's claims about violence and thumbed his nose at his peers, saying other African nations have seen thousands of deaths and elections have gone ahead anyway.

Mugabe and the West

Mugabe has regularly scrapped with the West, but this time leaders from southern Africa joined appeals for a postponement, prompting him to warn that Zimbabwe would not be subject to outside interference.

Through most of his 28 years in power, the former guerrilla leader has faced little serious political opposition, but results from the 29 March first round vote showed he finished behind Tsvangirai and his ruling party lost control of parliament.

Since the European Union and United States imposed sanctions on his inner circle after accusations that he rigged his 2002 victory over Tsvangirai, Mugabe has shown little willingness to mend fences.

He had previously indicated he would step down at the end of his last term but was back fighting again after loyalists of his Zanu-PF party endorsed his candidacy in December.

He was praised in the beginning…

An intellectual who initially embraced Marxism, Mugabe was widely praised when he won the election that ended white minority rule in 1980, a few weeks after Zimbabwe gained independence.

Born on 21 February 1924, at Kutama Mission, northwest of Harare, he qualified as a teacher aged 17.

He took his first political steps at Fort Hare University in South Africa, where he met many of southern Africa's future nationalist leaders.

Mugabe then resumed teaching, moving to Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia, and Ghana before returning to what was then Southern Rhodesia in 1960.

As a member of various banned nationalist parties, he was detained with other leaders in 1964 and spent the next 10 years in prison camps or jail.

He used that period to consolidate his position in the Zimbabwe African National Union and emerged from prison in November 1974 as Zanu-PF leader. He then left for Mozambique, from where his banned party conducted a guerrilla war.

Economic sanctions and war forced Rhodesian leader Ian Smith to negotiate.

After Zanu, which drew most of its support from the ethnic Shona majority, swept to power in the 1980 election, Mugabe announced a policy of reconciliation with the country's white minority but most subsequently left.

20 000 "dissidents" killed

Mugabe also crushed dissent among the minority Ndebele people with his North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade in a campaign that killed an estimated 20 000 suspected "dissidents".

In his early years, Mugabe was widely credited with improving health and education but social services later declined and the HIV/Aids epidemic shattered gains in healthcare.

Inflation has now soared to what is officially more than 11 million percent and there are shortages of basic foodstuffs across the country. Some 80 percent of the population live below the poverty line.

AFP