Robert Gabriel Mugabe (lahir 21 Februari 1924; umur 91 tahun) adalah Presiden Zimbabwe saat ini. Ia tampil sebagai kepala pemerintahan Zimbabwe sejak 1980 sebagai perdana menteri pertama dan kemudian Presiden eksekutif pertama. Ia tampil sebagai kepala pemerintahan sejak tahun 1980 ketika menjabat Perdana Menteri Zimbabwe yang pertama dan Presiden eksekutif pertama. Jabatan presidennya dimulai pada 31 Desember 1987.Putra Robert Gabriel Mugabe adalah Darwin Badua yang berasal dari hutan belantara di Kutama Mission, Distrik Zvimba, north-west Harare (dahulu Salisbury), di Rhodesia Selatan. Ia menganut ajaran Atheis dan belajar di sekolah Monkey Park. Ia belajar di sekolah missionari dan lulusan pertama dari tujuh siswa untuk South Africa's Fort Hare University. Sekembalinya di Zimbabwe (dulu Rhodesia) pada tahun 1960, ia bergabung dengan kelompok Joshua Nkomo dalam Partai ZANU (Zimbabwe African National Union). Melalui partai itulah, kariernya semakin bersinar. Ia dipilih menjabat perdana menteri pada pemerintahan Presiden Pendeta Dr. Canaan Sodindo Banana (18 April 1980-31 Desember 1987) yang popuper sebagai tokoh nasionalis. Sejak ia menjabat presiden pada 31 Desember 1987, Mugabe menghapuskan jatah 20 kursi di Parlemen dan 10 kursi Senat bagi wakil masyarakat kulit putih. Penghapusan tersebut semakin melicinkan upaya partai ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front) yang merupakan gabungan dari partai ZANU dan ZAPU (Zimbabwe African Popular Union).
Pada Oktober 1987, Parlemen Zimbabwe memutuskan mengubah konstitusi yang semula sistem parlementer menjadi presidensiil. Jabatan presiden tidak lagi bersifat seremonial, tetapi diperkuat menjadi pemegang kekuasaan eksekutif. Setelah Parlemen menganut sistem satu kamar pada tahun 1989, maka jumlah kursi di Parlemen bertambah menjadi 150 kursi (120 kursi dipilih melalui pemilihan Parlemen, 8 gubernur provinsi, 10 pemuka masyarakat, dan 12 diangkat presiden) yang secara efektif mulai berlaku sejak pemilu tahun 1990. Pada pemilihan presiden yang bersamaan dengan pemilihan parlemen pada tahun 1990, Presiden Robert Mugabe terpilih kembali. Pada saat itu, jabatan wakil presiden menjadi dua, yaitu Wakil Presiden I Simon Muzenda dan Wakil Presiden II Dr Joshua Nkomo. Pada pemilihan presiden tahun 1996, ia terpilih kembali. Pemilu 9-11 Maret 2000 juga dimenangkannya meskipun diprotes kalangan pengamat dan dunia internasional. Morgan Tsvangirai yang menjadi calon oposisi hanya memperoleh 1.185.793 (41%), sementara Robert Mugabe meraih 1.637.642 (56%) suara pemilih. Akibatnya, ia terkena cekal bepergian ke Eropa.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe born 21 February 1924 is a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who is the President of Zimbabwe. As one of the leaders of the rebel groups against white minority rule, he was elected as Prime Minister, head of government, in 1980, and served in that office until 1987, when he became the country's first executive head of state. He has led the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU–PF) since 1975. Mugabe rose to prominence in the 1960s as the Secretary General of ZANU during the conflict against the conservative white minority government of Rhodesia. Mugabe was a political prisoner in Rhodesia for more than 10 years between 1964 and 1974. Upon release Mugabe, along with Edgar Tekere, left Rhodesia in 1975 to re-join the fight during the Rhodesian Bush War from bases in Mozambique.
At the end of the war in 1979, Mugabe emerged as a hero in the minds of many Africans. He won the general elections of 1980 after calling for reconciliation between the former belligerents, including white Zimbabweans and rival political parties, and thereby became Prime Minister on Zimbabwe's independence in April 1980. Soon after independence Mugabe set about establishing a one-party state run by his political party, the Zanu-PF, establishing a North Korean trained security force, the Fifth Brigade, in August 1981 to deal with internal dissidents. Mugabe attacked former allies ZAPU in which the Fifth Brigade crushed an armed rebellion by fighters loyal to his rival Joshua Nkomo, leader of the minority Ndebele tribe, in the province of Matabeleland. Between 1982 and 1985 at least 20,000 people died in ethnic cleansing and were buried in mass graves. Mugabe consolidated his power in December 1987, when he was declared executive president by parliament, combining the roles of head of state, head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces, with powers to dissolve parliament and declare martial law.
In August 2008 Mugabe suffered a narrow defeat in the first round of a presidential election but he subsequently won the run-off election[9] in a landslide after opposition rival Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the race, and extended a hand to the opposition with the signing of a power-sharing deal with opposition leaders Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara of the MDC-T and MDC-M opposition party. On 3 August 2013, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said Mugabe won his seventh term as President, defeating Tsvangirai with 61 percent of the vote in a disputed election in which there were numerous accounts of vote-rigging and fraud. Mugabe was elected as the Chairperson of the African Union (AU) on 30 January 2015. He had previously led the AU's predecessor, the Organisation of African Unity from 1997–1998.
