Critics of his ever increasing repressive regime were dismissed as traitors and sell-outs, which during the civil war there, would mean certain death.
He sanctioned the self styled war veterans, who were backed by his henchmen, to use murder and violence as an electoral strategy and to claim white-owned farms as their own.
The year John Key's National led Government came to power here, Mugabe lost an election there to the courageous Morgan Tsvangirai, who on several occasions had been almost beaten to death for his opposition to the dictator.
He got 48 percent of the vote compared to Mugabe's 43 percent, but didn't push it to a second round because he knew his supporters would suffer the consequences.
Before the vote Mugabe said if you lose an election and are rejected by the people it's time to leave politics.
After it he declared only God could remove him from office
I had the good fortune of interviewing Tsvangirai when he was Prime Minister under Mugabe between 2009 and 2013 which was a job he freely admitted was a title with no power.
One can now only hope this country, once the jewel of southern Africa, but which in the year of Tsvangirai's "win" at the polls had an inflation rate of 231 million percent, can once again find its lustre but that at the moment is in the lap of the gods.
