Zimbabwe substantiate their claims. On 29 March 2008, Zimbabwe held a presidential election along with a parliamentary election. The results of this election were withheld for two weeks, after which it was generally acknowledged that the Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai (MDC-T) had achieved a majority of one seat in the lower house of parliament. In late 2008, problems in Zimbabwe reached crisis proportions in the areas of living standards, public health (with a major cholera outbreak in December) and various basic affairs. In September 2008, a power-sharing agreement was reached between Tsvangirai and President Mugabe, permitting the former to
Robert Mugabe during the Lancaster House negotiations, "of course he didn't actually practice what he preached, did he? Once in office he became a capitalist". Mugabe has stated that "socialism has to be much more Christian than capitalism". The Zimbabwean scholar George Shire described Mugabe's policies as being "broadly-speaking" social-democratic. During the 1980s, Mugabe indicated his desire to transform Zimbabwe from a multi-party state into a one-party state. In 1984 he stated that "the one-party state is more in keeping with African tradition. It makes for greater unity for the people. It puts all opinions under one umbrella, whether these opinions are