If figures don’t lie, MDC support is declining

If figures don’t lie then the Movement for Democratic Change has a lot more work to do ahead of next year’s elections as its support seems to be declining, according to a survey  released this month by the African think-tank, Afrobarometer.

MDC support had declined to only 19 percent by 2014 from a peak of 45 percent in 2009, a year after MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai beat President Robert Mugabe in the March 2008 elections but pulled out of the run-off after the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Tsvangirai had not won enough votes to take over the reins.

Support for the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front has however catapulted from a mere 7 percent in 2009 to 39 percent in 2014.

Afrobarometer says its study presents evidence that the ZANU-PF electoral victory in 2013 is at least partly due to the MDC-T’s inability to leverage its role in stabilising the country during the inclusive government period.

The MDC-T maintains that Mugabe and ZANU-PF stole the elections and claim that the present economic crisis in the country is because the present government is illegitimate.

“You can rig the elections, but you can’t rig the economy,” it often says.

Ed: Do you agree with these figures?

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