SW Radio Africa (London)
Tichaona Sibanda
10 July 2009
Elias Rusike, the first man to launch an independent daily newspaper in Zimbabwe, has died at the age of 68.
The former chief executive of Zimbabwe Newspapers and former publisher of the Financial Gazette, died on Wednesday at St Anne's Hospital in Avondale, Harare. Reports say he was suffering from cancer.
During his tenure as publisher of the Financial Gazette, he was famously told by the late Eddison Zvobgo that 'cabinet was skinning you alive' for daring to criticize Robert Mugabe and some of his cabinet ministers.
Rusike, who retired to go into farming a decade ago, first became chief executive of Zimbabwe Newspapers in 1984 after serving on the Public Service Commission. He resigned from the newspaper group in 1989 in the wake of the Willowgate Scandal in which one of the company's newspapers, The Chronicle, exposed widespread corruption in government towards the end of 1988.
Rusike became chief executive and publisher of the weekly Financial Gazette in 1989. Three years later he launched the first independent
daily, the Daily Gazette. But because of an economic slump the newspaper ceased to publish in 1994.
In 1995 Mugabe blocked Rusike from entering politics after he had won the primaries to represent ZANU PF in the 1995 elections. Mugabe instead recalled the country's High Commissioner to London, Herbert Murerwa, to stand in Rusike's Goromonzi constituency before appointing him Minister of Finance.
Elias Rusike is expected to be buried next week at his Goromonzi farm.
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