Tendai Biti

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Tendai Laxton Biti (born 6 August 1966) is the Secretary-General of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-Tsvangirai) political party in Zimbabwe and a member of Parliament for Harare East.

Biti was born in Harare in 1966 and attended the University of Zimbabwe law school. In 1988 and 1989 Biti led student protests against government censorship in academia. In 2000 he helped found the MDC. He was arrested in 2007 with many others, including MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, after a prayer rally in the Harare township of Highfield.

He was elected Member of Parliament for Harare East Constituency in 2000. During the Fifth Parliament he served as a member of the Parliament Portfolio Committee on Lands, Agriculture, Water Development, Rural Resources and Resettlement and that on Defence and Home Affairs. In March 2005 he retained the constituency. He serves in the Portfolio Committee on Budget, Finance and Economic Development and is currently the MDC's Secretary General. In his legal career Biti has handled labour and human rights litigation representing large trade unions such as the Post and Telecommunications Trade Union.

On June 16, 2007 Biti and Welshman Ncube met with Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Labor Minister Nicholas Goche, in Pretoria, South Africa. South African President Thabo Mbeki, appointed by the Southern African Development Community, presided over the negotiations which sought to end economic sanctions on Zimbabwe.^[1]

Biti was re-elected to the House of Assembly from Harare East in the March 2008 parliamentary election. According to official results, he received 8,377 votes against 2,587 for the ZANU-PF candidate.^[2] In the period following the election, he stayed outside of Zimbabwe (mainly in South Africa), along with Tsvangirai, amidst a post-electoral situation that the MDC alleges is marked by serious violence against MDC supporters.^[3]

Biti returned to Zimbabwe on June 12 and was immediately arrested at the airport in Harare. Before his departure from Johannesburg, Biti said that he had already learned that he would be arrested, but maintained that his only crime was "fighting for democracy" and said that it was necessary for him to return to participate in the MDC's struggle.^[4]

Biti has four children two of which live in Zimbabwe and one who goes to college in Australia an another in Texas with his birth mother, Biti commonaly when not busy goes to see his sons, in Plano, Texas and Australia.