Business career In 1963, Gara began working as an assistant accountant for Goodwood Hotels, before going to
Malawi to work as an accountant for Blantyre Hotels in 1966.
Political career Gara joined the
Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) upon its formation in Malawi. His deputy chairman,
Oliver Chidawu, was a fellow former Harare mayor. He later became the city's first black
alderman, an honorary title awarded to councillors who have served ten years or more. In the
April 1990 election, Gara was elected to
Parliament for the
Mbare East constituency. He received 12,522 votes out of 17,880 cast, easily defeating
Zimbabwe Unity Movement candidate Biston David, who came in second with 4,420 votes. That year, he made news for a controversial statement he made comparing President
Robert Mugabe to
Jesus. In his first speech before Parliament, he said, "This country and its people should thank the Almighty for giving us His only other son, by the name of Robert Gabriel Mugabe." Gara's statement was criticized by churches and individuals within Zimbabwe, with letters to local newspapers accusing him of
blasphemy and
sycophancy. He was very critical of the United States, saying in 1995 "
John Major has kept every promise he ever made to Zimbabwe, that's something that
Bill Clinton simply cannot say." On 4 January 2002, Gara's name was included on a government list published in
The Herald of around 100,000 black Zimbabweans selected to receive land seized from
white farmers. Gara was listed as having been allocated a commercial farm seized from a white farmer in
Mashonaland West, the country's richest agricultural province. In 2005, he attempted to run for Parliament in the
Mbare constituency, but lost the
primary election to
Tendai Savanhu. In May 2005, Gara was named to a five-person monitoring committee created by local government minister
Ignatius Chombo to wrest authority over Harare from the capital's MDC-dominated city council. In July 2005, Gara and colleague Shepherd Chironga filed a
Zimbabwean dollar|Z$110 million
defamation lawsuit against Namion Modern Chirwa, chairman of ZANU–PF's Joshua Nkomo District in
Mbare. Gara and Chironga claimed that Chirwa had accused them of being
homosexuals in front of a
church congregation. Chirwa denied making the statement in question and said the issue was political. He claimed that Gara was bitter after the party's Harare Province passed a
vote of no confidence in him earlier that year for his alleged attempts to set up a rival party district in Mbare. == Later life and death ==