FACTBOX: Key facts about Zimbabwe's President Mugabe

(Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai defeated President Robert Mugabe in the presidential election but faces a run-off vote after he failed to win an outright majority, the electoral body said.

Here are some facts about Mugabe:

* Once hailed as a model African democrat, Mugabe has held fast to power for years despite a deepening political and economic crisis that critics blame on his policies.

* Mugabe was born in February 1924 on the Kutama Mission northwest of Harare and educated by Jesuits. He earned seven university degrees, three while in prison.

* Mugabe was jailed for 10 years in 1964 for opposing white minority rule. A guerrilla war began in 1972 against Ian Smith's white government of then-Rhodesia.

* Mugabe became leader of the ZANU liberation movement in the mid-1970s after his release from jail.

* The renamed ZANU-PF won independence elections in 1980 and Mugabe became prime minister. He took office as president in 1987 following a change in the constitution.

* In 2000, Mugabe tasted defeat when voters in a referendum rejected a constitution that would have given him more power. He turned on the small white minority, blaming them.

* He pushed legislation through parliament allowing his government to seize over half the white-owned farms. Self-styled war veterans occupied many other farms, often with violence.

* Mugabe was elected to his third term as president in 2002 but his crackdown against the MDC and other opponents, including journalists, increased his international isolation.

* Mugabe's party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time in the March elections.

(Writing by David Cutler, London Editorial Reference Unit)

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