Zimbabwe’s elections are due on Wednesday against the backdrop of a state that for two decades has been overwhelmed by its failures on the political and economic fronts.
Defying the pattern whereby incumbents — especially the founding fathers of post-independence Africa — are ousted in elections by voters who, usually in vain, hope for a better tomorrow, the state in Zimbabwe has since 2000 survived on the back of a securocracy impervious to and incapable of reform.
Every election since 2000 has been rigged and/or ended in dispute. As Nigerian activist Aisha Yesufu stated recently: “Until rigged elections are treated in the same way as coups, democracy will continue to be in danger.”
Zimbabwe's series of disputed elections since 2000 represent not only “coups” (not excluding the military one of November 2017), but the antithesis of democracy itself. This renders the electoral process farcical and a mechanism through which the securocrat state renews its illegitimate mandate, especially and significantly with respect to the presidential poll.
Zimbabwe introduced the notion of “harmonised elections” in 2008 in a vain attempt to limit the growing discrepancy between results of parliamentary and local government elections and those of presidential polls. By all accounts, Robert Mugabe lost to Morgan Tsvangirai in the presidential polls of 2002, 2008 and 2013. Closer scrutiny of the 2018 elections would appear to confirm the view of a number of analysts that Emmerson Mnangagwa likewise lost to Nelson Chamisa.
Only an international conference will help salvage the country
The official tally itself is quite telling, not least for the discrepancy between the parliamentary and presidential polls. For example, Zanu-PF won 23 parliamentary seats out of a total of 26 in Manicaland, while Mnangagwa lost to Chamisa in the province.
Similarly, Zanu-PF won all nine parliamentary seats in Matebeleland North while Mnangagwa got only 5% of the vote.
Overall, Mnangagwa lost in 118 constituencies out of 210, officially preventing a runoff with Chamisa by only 37,000 votes and garnering 50.8% to be declared winner.
This is why the 2023 elections again place the presidential poll in sharp relief, with Zanu-PF and the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) putting most of their resources behind Mnangagwa and Chamisa respectively.
Anything and everything has been thrown into the contest on the part of Mnangagwa, Zanu-PF and its state: from the traditional portrayal of the opposition as an enemy to be vanquished, to irregularities in the electoral process that have led legal experts and other observers to conclude that the elections are already fatally flawed.
Not to mention the operations of the shadowy Forever Associates Zimbabwe (Faz), which has replaced the military as the group in charge of the elections. The argument is that Mnangagwa, who has in vain tried to distance the military from politics since the coup in 2017, does not trust the very forces that landed him in office, especially his deputy, retired general Constantino Chiwenga.
So far, Mnangagwa’s campaign appears to be independent of the military. He has invested money and patronage in the judiciary in particular. It appears to be so captured that the courts have become an integral part of the electoral process and will be a decisive factor if the results are disputed.
Already the courts have disqualified exiled Mugabe ally Saviour Kasukuwere as a presidential candidate, thus removing a potential major complication for Mnangawa’s electoral chances given the rampant factionalism within Zanu-PF itself. How the military is likely to react to developments around the election is open to speculation — and likewise the feud between Mnangagwa and Chiwenga cannot be ignored.
Also not to be ignored is the extent to which, with the help of Faz and others, Mnangagwa and his cohorts have coerced thousands of people across the country to attend his campaign rallies.
The elections will be a watershed moment in the history of the country. They mark the end of an era in which the liberation struggle and its protracted aftermath have tended to justify the virtual one-party state and its political and economic excesses since independence in 1980.
Natural attrition has taken its toll, with the inevitable depletion of the leaders of the liberation struggle, including the war veterans who were the bedrock of the regime and now appear to be a forlorn factor in Zimbabwean politics.
Also, the generation of the liberation struggle — including intellectuals, professionals and working-class and student movements — have long since ceased to be associated with Zanu-PF. Most of its founders, such as Ndabaningi Sithole, Mugabe, Maurice Nyagumbo, Edgar Tekere and Enos Nkala, had by the time of their deaths cut ties with the party they launched as a breakaway from Zapu in 1963.
Now well into his 80s, Mnangagwa is naturally on his way out, along with such stalwarts as Sydney Sekeramayi and Kembo Mohadi. The tier below them lacks the stature and social base they would need if they were to restore Zanu-PF to the level of political (and military) significance it held in the period preceding the coup in November 2017.
The coup itself represented an advanced stage in the inexorable disintegration and decline of the party and its securocrat state.
The generational shift means that whatever the outcome of the elections this week, they mark a new era in which Zimbabwe could achieve the same status as most of its neighbours: the restoration of constitutionalism and the rule of law; the return of the military to barracks; the restoration and reform of national institutions; the separation of powers through an accountable executive, a vibrant legislature and a fiercely independent judiciary.
Political reform and a free, fair and credible election are the prerequisites for economic re-engagement with the international community. In the absence of this, the country has descended into depression, hyperinflation and gross unemployment.
Nearly 6-million citizens, including an estimated 75% of Zimbabwe’s professional and skilled personnel, have left the country. Debt restructuring and readmission to the Commonwealth hinge on a free election.
So what has to be done now that it is almost certain that the election will be neither free, fair nor credible?
In January, the Southern African Political Economy Series (Sapes) Trust and a sister organisation, Good Governance Africa, sought to engage South Africa's department of international relations & co-operation with a view to holding an international conference on Zimbabwe.
This was supposed to have been held in June and to have led to the appointment of a group of eminent persons (mainly former heads of state of South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Nigeria and Mozambique).
Regrettably, South Africa has not responded to the proposal. Our expectation is that only such a conference, with the participation of the AU and the Southern African Development Community, can salvage the country.
The envisaged eminent persons group would mediate among all political parties and civic organisations in the country and in the diaspora, and result in another Lancaster House-type consultation on Zimbabwe.
Prof Ibbo Mandaza is a Zimbabwean academic, author and publisher. He is the Convenor of the Sapes Trust policy dialogue forum.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.