The Zimbabwean ruling party has a long history of election victory by methods ranging from well organised violence to ballot box stuffing to media manipulation. So too did its predecessors.
The white minority regimes rigged elections by creating a myriad of justifications and variations to keep the numbers of “qualified” black African voters low.
In the late fifties and early sixties, the first black unions and nationalist parties were rent with violence. This extended from leadership selection to control over foreign funding (necessary to organise elections of any sort). And of course there were plenty of sticks, stones and firebombs when the nationalist movement split into two parties.
As nationalism started full stride in 1964 the leader of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) signed “Joshua Nkomo, Life President” to a letter to a British Secretary of State.
Seven years later, as the struggle upped the ante into full arms, ZANU’s guerrilla leader gained votes for his choice on the “war council” by standing in front of his chosen candidate and his followers duly lined up behind him. No secret ballot there.
A few years later, threatened by a group of radical youth, Mugabe persuaded the guerrilla army’s host, Mozambican president Samora Machel, to shunt its leaders into prison. Thus suitably moderate in terms of Cold War politics, the liberation party swept its way to the 1980 victory.
The many complaints about intimidation – and worse – didn’t dent the British-led transitional team’s haste to wipe their hands of their embarrassing semi-colony.
With state power from 1980 to now, ZANU-PF has learned even more lessons. As Norma Kriger has chronicled, all Zimbabwe’s elections up to 2000 were rife with coercion, rarely acknowledged by academics, other observers, and important states.
The lessons learned then helped in future strategies. As Tim Scarnecchia notes, during Gukurahundi– the “spring storms” that washed away thousands of Ndebele people suspected of harbouring treasonous intent – the Zimbabwean rulers learned to keep local and global great powers on side.
The 2000 parliamentary election was unprecedented. ZANU-PF was challenged seriously by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), with deep roots in civil society resistance. The ruling party’s 1997 deal with the land-hungry war veterans’ association created the perfect weapon against those thought to have made an alliance with the new opposition: white farmers.
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