HARARE ‑ Zimbabwe's late main opposition MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who died on Wednesday at Wits Donald Gordon Medical Centre in Johannesburg, will be laid to rest on Monday at his rural Buhera home.
MDC-T interim leader Nelson Chamisa, who is also MDC Alliance acting president, said Tsvangirai’s body would arrive in Zimbabwe at 7pm Saturday aboard an Air Zimbabwe plane.
He said the body would lie in state at his government-bought Highlands mansion in the capital, before being taken to Freedom Square, an open space in the capital Harare the opposition party has always used for its biggest rallies.
“Thereafter the body will be taken to Humanikwa village in Buhera where he will be buried next to his first wife Susan Tsvangirai on Monday,” Chamisa said.
Susan, who died in a car crash in March 2009, when they were on their way to Buhera.
A veteran trade unionist and politician, Tsvangirai succumbed to cancer of the colon on Wednesday after a long two-year battle.
Since his entry into mainstream politics in 1999, Tsvangirai always gave the ruling Zanu PF party a torrid time at elections, beating former President Robert Mugabe in March 2008, but failing to garner the 50% plus one votes required to assume Presidency.
His near-win saw a bloody June 2008 run-off, which left many of Tsvangirai’s supporters maimed or dead as the state embarked on a campaign of violence and intimidation.