2010-04-09
HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean Bishop Abel Muzorewa, who had been prime minister in a short-lived pre-independence government and was dismissed by his opponents as a puppet of former white minority rulers, has died at 85.

Abel Tendekayi Muzorewa of the United Methodist Church agreed to share power with the minority government of what was then Rhodesia in 1978 and 1979 and during that period renamed the country Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.

He retired both from politics and the church in the 1990s, but he remained opposed to President Robert Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party, which defeated him in elections at Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980.