History of Zimbabwe may explain why in January 2007 thousands of pupils received no marks for subjects they had entered, while others were deemed "excellent" in subjects they had not sat. However as of late the education system has recovered and is still considered the best in Southern Africa. Zimbabwe held a presidential election along with a 2008 parliamentary election of 29 March. The three major candidates were incumbent President Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change – Tsvangirai (MDC-T), and Simba Makoni, an independent. As no candidate received an
Robert Mugabe Marxist-Leninist regimes in the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc, in 1991 ZANU-PF removed references to "Marxism-Leninism" and "scientific socialism" in its material, although Mugabe maintained that "socialism remains our sworn ideology". That year, Mugabe pledged himself to free market economics and accepted a structural adjustment programme provided by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). This economic reform package called for Zimbabwe to privatise state assets and reduce import tariffs; Mugabe's government implemented some although not all of its recommendations. The reforms encouraged employers to cut their wages, generating growing opposition from the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. By 1990, 52,000