Munyaradzi Gwisai: The Zimbabwean Socialist

HARARE, ZIMBABWE – Born in Gweru in 1968, Gwisai’s political awakening began at the University of Zimbabwe (UZ), where he studied law and immersed himself in socialist ideals, eventually becoming General Secretary of the Students Representative Council. This foundation cemented his path as a committed Trotskyist, leading him to his current role as the General Coordinator of the International Socialist Organization (ISO) in Zimbabwe.

Gwisai’s career has been characterized by sharp contradictions and principled dissent.

 Brief Stint in Mainstream Politics: He entered mainstream politics in 2000, winning a parliamentary seat for Highfield, Harare, under the banner of the then-united Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). However, his tenure was short-lived. He was expelled from the MDC in 2002 after taking a radical socialist stance and publicly clashing with the party leadership, whom he accused of being hijacked by “elitist forces.”

 A Workers’ Champion: As a respected law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe and a partner at Matika, Gwisai and Partners, he is a leading expert in Labour and Employment Law in Zimbabwe—a subject on which he has also authored a book. His legal and academic work consistently underpins his political activism, focusing on the rights of workers, the marginalized, and the poor.

Perhaps the most defining episode of his life was the 2011 arrest that shocked the nation and drew international condemnation.

Gwisai and 45 other social and human rights activists were arrested after watching video footage of the Arab Spring at a public meeting in Harare. They were subsequently charged with treason or alternatively, “subverting a constitutional government”—charges that carried a potential death sentence.

“To the ordinary people, this is not surprising. This is a staple of what is happening in Africa and across the world. So we take it as it comes, the struggle continues.” – Munyaradzi Gwisai, following his conviction on lesser charges in 2012.

The activists’ lawyers reported that some of the detainees, including Gwisai, were subjected to torture during their initial detention. Although the treason charges were eventually dropped in 2012, the incident highlighted the severity of the state’s response to any perceived threat of mass mobilization and solidified Gwisai’s image as an unflinching rebel in the eyes of his supporters and a persistent thorn in the side of the establishment.

Today, Gwisai remains a powerful, independent voice—often critical of both the ruling party and the opposition, advocating instead for mass action and a genuinely socialist, working-class led movement.

John Makumbe, a late UZ lecturer and political analyst, once described Gwisai not as a “rebel without a cause,” but as an “independent thinker, who was not afraid of standing out from a crowd.”

From the corridors of academia to the front lines of political dissent, Munyaradzi Gwisai continues his decades-long “struggle” for a more just and egalitarian Zimbabwe, one where the working class holds the reins of power.