For years ZANU-PF has retained rural support partly through its history as a liberation movement. However, it has also used coercion, an elaborate patronage network that rewards respected traditional chiefs, violence and threats to return to the 1970s bush war, which was largely fought in the countryside.
Movements such as #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka have used Facebook, Twitter and WhatsApp to rally Zimbabweans against the leadership of the 92-year-old Mugabe, but this has been mostly targeted at citizens in urban areas, where internet use is high.
Mugabe has a long record of cracking down heavily on anti-government street protests, but the new wave of demonstrations taking place almost weekly is proving harder to suppress and is stretching the government’s standard response of teargas, boots and baton sticks.
Mugabe’s government blames all of Zimbabwe’s economic ills on sanctions imposed by Western countries, which they also accuse of sponsoring the latest protests.
The internet and mobile phone apps have given people a sense of anonymity, helping to create an army of activists expressing anger against high unemployment, an acute shortage of cash, poor public services and corruption.
Activist pastor Evan Mawarire first posted a video on Facebook in April draped in Zimbabwe’s flag and lamenting its economic problems. The video captured the frustrations of many citizens, giving birth to #ThisFlag movement.
Political analysts doubt the social media movement will topple Mugabe because it does not enjoy support from the military and has yet to win nationwide backing.
The rural population has remained spectators on the sidelines, but this could change, said Prosper Mkwananzi, leader of the militant group #Tajamuka – slang in the Shona language for defiance.
The group has formed an offshoot, #ZimbabweYadzoka, (Reclaiming Zimbabwe), which seeks to engage the countryside.
“#ZimbabweYadzoka is designed for the needs of the rural folks. We are using that and drafting a strategy to penetrate the rural areas in terms of social media use,” Mkwananzi said.
“In the next three or so months you will see some action because despite all the perception, WhatsApp is very strong in the rural areas and we would like to capitalise on that.”
Many people use WhatsApp to pass political messages on family, friends and church group chats.
In some villages closer to Harare, citizens are catching up with the social media messages of defiance.
“Thank God, we don’t have to rely on their (government)propaganda to know what is going on,” said 25-year-old Samuel Samanyanga in Bindura, a farming town 80 km north of the capital, as he read a WhatsApp message from a city-based friend.
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