From beyond the grave: Why Mugabe is still an important influence in Zimbabwe

The order to move Robert Mugabe’s body has placed the former leader centre stage again, reports Simon Speakman Cordall

Even at the time of his ouster, the military forces placing him under house arrest at his Blue Roof mansion claimed to be acting against ‘criminals’ in his circle, rather than against the man himself (Getty)

The order from a regional court to disinter the body of former president Robert Mugabe, from his grave in Kutama in rural Zvimba to be buried at the National Heroes Acre outside Harare, the capital, has reignited an argument that continues to define modern-day Zimbabwe and casts a shadow over its current government.

Despite his ousting, aged 93 in 2017, amid desperate economic conditions – and death in 2019 – Mugabe’s personal popularity has remained largely intact.

Many in Zimbabwe remember their former president as the founder of independence and a national educator who took the land from the colonial white settlers to give to the country’s landless, who came to be undermined in his later years by corrupt advisers and the ambitions of his much younger wife.