The MDC secretary general and Finance Minister Tendai Biti told mourners that the late Susan Tsvangirai opened her hand and waived goodbye to his husband before she passed on.

“The Prime Minister told me when he was on his hospital bed on Friday that his guards rushed to rescue him when the accident occurred but he told them that they should attend to his wife first but the aides had already seen that the Prime Minister’s wife would not survive,“ said Biti.

“The Prime Minister told me that his wife raised her hand and waved to him to say good bye, using the open hand symbol of the party.“

“She was a mother to the struggle for democratic change in Zimbabwe. She was an activist and revolutionary in her own right. She believed that there must be democracy in Zimbabwe,” said Biti.

Biti recounted how Susan had stood by her husband during the many difficult and hazardous time he faced as leader of the country’s main opposition.

“The question in our hearts is: Why and why now?” Biti said, no doubt speaking for many MDC supporters who have found it difficult to accept Susan’s death just when the struggle of the past decade appeared to be bearing some fruit after the party entered a power-sharing government with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party.

At least 35 000 Zimbabweans gathered at a sports stadium outside Harare city centre to bid farewell to Susan Tsvangirai, wife of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who died in a car crash last Friday.

Susan, who shunned the political limelight but somehow remained popular among supporters of Tsvangirai’s MDC party, died shortly after the car she and her husband were travelling in was struck on the side by a truck that veered onto their lane along the Harare-Chivhu highway. Her husband survived the crash, only sustaining some neck and head injuries.

In a massive show of affection and support for Susan and her husband, thousands of MDC supporters trooped to the stadium on foot and in cars, many hours before Tsvangirai and the entourage bearing her wife’s coffin were due to arrive at the stadium.

And when Tsvangirai eventually entered the stadium along with the coffin of his wife, the crowd erupted in one huge outburst of emotion, ululating and cheering at their leader, as others waved placards in the air declaring their undying love for Susan.

And when senior MDC officials and other dignitaries rose to speak, only the detail varied but the theme remained the same: Susan’s steadfast support for Tsvangirai as the former trade unionist-turned-politician led the treacherous struggle for democracy and a better future for Zimbabwe.

Lovemore Matombo, president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions that Tsvangirai led before forming the MDC in 1999, said Susan had supported the workers’ struggle and called on the Prime Minister to keep up the momentum of the struggle for better living conditions for workers.

He said: “Mr Tsvangirai must not lose the momentum that he had (with Susan’s support). His wife has been fighting for workers’ rights, she was a mother to all workers.”

In a reminder that despite the massive show of support for Tsvangirai from all quarters including by Mugabe and his wife Grace, suspicions over the accident remain lingering in many people’s minds, the national students body took to the stage to call for inquiry into the cause of the car crash.

Zimbabwe National Students Unions leader Clever Bere told the gathering: “The fatal accident that claimed the life of our mother and injured the Prime Minister remains consistent with the patterns of the past.

“Zimbabwe’s political history is riddled with a trail of politically motivated accidents that remain an unresolved mystery to all of us. We join the progressive world in calling for an independent impartial inquiry into the circumstances that led to the death of Mai Tsvangirai.”

Tsvangirai has himself ruled out the possibility of foul play in the car crash while Mugabe speaking earlier in the day during a church memorial for Susan called the accident an act of God.

However there are many in the country who remain unconvinced the car crash was a genuine accident.

A raging battle between Tsvangirai and Mugabe for control of a power-sharing government the two formed last month has helped feed this speculation over the car crash. While a long history of deaths of prominent political figures in mysterious road accidents has only helped exacerbate suspicions over the accident.

Tsvangirai’s son Edwin said as a family they remain committed to the democratic struggle but pleaded for a short time after all public proceedings to allow the family to grieve in privacy.

“We shall request for a time to withdraw from public life but not that we have withdrawn from the cause of the country. We want to help our father, to grief so that we can prepare him to take the nation forward,” he said.

Susan, Tsvangirai’s wife of 31 years and with whom she had six children, will be buried today at her rural home in Buhera in Manicaland province.