1 From one Terence Ranger
THE ZIMBABWE ELECTIONS: A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE1
Terence RANGER, 19 March 2002
I spent the period between the last week in January and March 11 2002 in
Zimbabwe (with a two week break in Australia, which turned out to be very relevant ). I
spent my time in the cities because I was warned that it would be too dangerous to
penetrate into the countryside, even into those parts I know best. I have researched in
Makoni district in the east and Matopo district in the south-west. But I was warned that
Makoni had been declared a no-go area. I had first-hand reports that African mourners
entering Makoni to attend a funeral were arrested at road blocks and threatened with
violence; I heard of a black Catholic priest, driving through Rusape with a copy of the
Daily News on his dash board, who was accosted by an 18 year old girl and slapped
across the face for daring to say that he intended to read it; Didymus Mutasa, ZANU/PF
Lord of Makoni, justified the use of violence there and went so far as to say that if the
MDC were to win the election he would support an armed coup against it. 2 As for the
Matopos, it had been arranged that I should be picked up in Bulawayo and taken to a
shrine deep in the hills which I had never visited before. But the day before I was due to
go Robert Mugabe addressed a rally in the district, proclaiming that 'whites are evil'. My
guide sensibly thought that the day after the rally was not the best time for him to take a
white man into the hills. So the only area outside the towns which I visited was the
countryside around Mutare and towards the Honde Valley, where I spent the first day of
the election. But this was as much an MDC area as are the towns and so I spent my whole
time in opposition territory. Readers must bear this in mind in what follows.
By this time everyone will know the results of the elections and the events which
followed them. So it makes no sense for me to 'predict' or even to 'explain'. What I seek
to do is to give a feeling of the pre-election atmosphere and to take readers inside the
debates among the parties, the churches and civil society.
THE ELECTIONS AND HISTORY
I want to begin discussing the elections by talking about history. You will say that
this is because I am a historian. But I don't think anyone could fail to notice how central
to ZANU/PF's campaign was a particular version of history. I spent four days watching
Zimbabwe television which presented nothing but one 'historical' programme after
another; the government press - the Herald and the Chronicle - ran innumerable historical
articles. When I retired last year as Visiting Professor at the University of Zimbabwe I
gave a valedictory lecture entitled 'History Matters'. The elections certainly showed that it
does. But I called in my lecture for a complex, plural history. Television and the
1 This presentation was first given at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies on March 19 2002 and repeated
at the University of the West of England on March 21 2002. In order to preserve its immediacy it has not
been updated in the light of subsequently available material.
2 The Minister of Education, Aeneas Chigwedere, speaking at a school in Makoni which was being renamed
after Maurice Nyagumbo, commented on Mutasa's strategy, saying that if a woman did not like you
you could not win her affection by beating her up!
2
newspapers insisted on an increasingly simple and monolithic history. As Professor Brian
Raftopolous said to me: 'Twenty years of historiography are being swept away'. We were
back with the ZANU/PF history of 1980. 3
Television constantly repeated documentaries about the guerrilla war and about
colonial brutalities; there were nightly discussions of 'heritage' presented by UZ lecturers
in literature or sociology, gesturing over piles of history books. The Herald and Sunday
Mail regularly carried articles on slavery, the partition, colonial exploitation and the
liberation struggle. I recognised the outlines of many of my own books but boiled down
in the service of ZANU/PF. 4 The basic message was spelt out in an article by Godfrey
Chikowore in the Herald of 16 February, 'Defending Our Heritage. Armed Struggle
should serve as Guiding Spirit':
The destiny of any sovereign state like Zimbabwe … lies in their
capacity to defend their own heritages and legacies, be it historical,
cultural, or psychological. This is the fundamental, inalienable and
unquestionable right of every legitimate citizen … The 2002 presidential
elections should, therefore, see candidates producing manifestos which
spell out clearly that they are going to uphold Zimbabwean values and
heritage and restore a sense of heritage and a sense of patriotism
among Zimbabweans … The election is a reassertion and reconsideration
not only of Zimbabwean heritage and legacy but also the heritage and
legacy of Africa, lost since the days of slavery. Zimbabwe is the product
of a bitter and protracted armed struggle. That armed struggle should
serve as the guiding spirit through the presidential elections and even
beyond. The right to choose a president of one's own choice should not
be considered as a mere exercise of a democratic right. It is the advancement
of a historical mission of liberating Zimbabwe from the clutches of neocolonialism.
Any other wild illusion about it constitutes a classical
example of self-betrayal and self-condemnation to the ranks of perpetual
servitude. The stampede for democracy should not undermine the gains
of the liberation war.
It was obvious that Chikowore believed that Mugabe's campaign - with its
repeated emphasis on the armed struggle and slogan that 'Zimbabwe will never be a
colony again' -met his criteria, and that Tsvangarai's did not. The MDC , he said, had
abolished history, proclaiming its irrelevance in an 'age of globalisation'. They merely
promised prosperity and were prepared to 'reverse' Zimbabwe's history in order to get it
even if this meant 'turning Zimbabwe into a British and American overseas territory'. 'The
3 Two published pamphlets provide a slightly more considered version of media history: Aeneas
Chigwedere, British Betrayal of the Africans. Land, Cattle, Human Rights. Case for Zimbabwe, Mutapa,
Harare, 2001;Claude Mararike, Africa's Heritage: Our Rallying Point. The Case of Zimbabwe's Land Issue,
Best Practice Books, Harare, 2001.
4 There was no reflection, of course, of the more complex history of the liberation war reflected in N.Bhebe
and Terence Ranger,eds., Soldiers in Zimbabwe's Liberation War and Society in Zimbabwe's Liberation
War, 1995 and 1996; and still less of N.Bhebe and Terence Ranger, eds., The Historical Dimensions of
Democracy and Human Rights in Zimbabwe, two volumes, 2001 and 2002.
3
Zimbabwean electorate has to be assured', wrote Chikowore, 'that this group has no
history that could logically confirm its credibility for the Presidential crown'.
The election, therefore, was History versus 'The End of History'. In Mugabe's
campaign speeches, Tsvangirai was often hardly mentioned. It seemed that Mugabe was
really contesting with Tony Blair, whom the Herald referred to as 'B.Liar'. When
Tsvangarai was mentioned he was constantly abused for not having contributed to
Zimbabwe's history and indeed for not understanding what it was. At a rally in Mutare
Tsvangarai accused Mugabe of aiming to turn Zimbabwe into 'a nation of peasants'. In
the Herald of 12 February Olley Maruma mocked his speech:
For someone who wants to be the president of this sophisticated
country full of well-educated people, the audacity with which Mr
Morgan Tsvangirai is prepared to brandish his woeful ignorance
in public is quite astonishing. The depth of his knowledge of our
history is so shallow it is frightening. 70 percent of the black people
of Zimbabwe are already peasants. They were transformed into
peasants by successive colonial regimes … Giving them land that
was taken from their ancestors is merely trying to bestow them
with their former status - independent agricultural producers and
traders. 5
In Chikowore and Maruma I have quoted the most sophisticated exponents of the
argument. On ZTV it was translated into something much less intelligent. Once again
viewers were shown a vision of a liberation war in which only Mugabe was a legitimate
leader and only ZANU/PF was an effective army. There were, indeed, regular
invocations of Joshua Nkomo, 'Father Zimbabwe', but his army, ZIPRA, was never
shown on the screen. (In Bulawayo I was visited by ex-ZIPRA men desperate to make a
video of their war-time achievements so that it could be shown regularly on ZTV). The
radical Zimbabwe Peoples Army, ZIPA, was never mentioned. The repetitions, the
exclusions, the use of war-time tragedy for party purposes and the present excesses of exguerrillas
have had the effect of cheapening liberation history. I saw these programmes in
the house of a university History lecturer who has herself written on the guerrilla war.
'Whenever television showed anything on the war I used to run to see it', she said. 'Now I
can hardly react to it at all'.
For a long time MDC responses to the ZANU/PF historical campaign were purely
negative. 'Big Brother has wrenched open the archives', wrote Innocent Chofamba Sithole
in the Financial Gazette of February 14-20, 'and history cringes into the vulnerable
asylum of mere signs and symbols of ink on paper, of recorded image and sound on
films. The nation is daily bombarded with grim images of grotesquely mutilated and
decomposing black bodies from the liberation war, falling like boulders from the cliff of
the television screen.' It was 'an attempt to edit the nation's collective memory in order to
5 Maruma quotes 'a white academic', David Lan, for an account of how independent producers were turned
into peasants. The point is well taken: the real question is whether the current resettlement really is turning
peasants back into independent producers.
4
rewrite the history of the struggle for independence … By virtue of being the government
of the day ZANU/PF has access to and control over, the recorded signs and symbols that
denote and connote our history as a nation … Central to ZANU/PF's re-election
campaign is the political commodification of the legacy of the liberation war'. Sithole
concluded that ZTV was producing 'narrowly defined notions of Zimbabwean
nationalism':
Amid the choking fumes of the aggressive political campaigns, history
lets out a piercing wail as Big Brother relentlessly attempts to weave,
past, present and future into his person.
This was effective criticism but the MDC was for a long time unable to escape
from its image as a representative of globalisation rather than as an heir of Zimbabwe's
history. This changed on the eve of the election. In the Financial Gazette for March 7-13
Masipula Sithole mocked Mugabe for trying to monopolise the power of declaring
revolutions. According to Mugabe, the election was 'The Third Chimurenga', a
revolutionary upheaval against neo-colonialism: Sithole cited Mugabe's statement from
the 1980s that 'the only revolution in Zimbabwe is the ZANU/PF revolution'. Sithole
continued:
The march of history must somehow come to and end after ZANU/PF
comes to power. [But] I am declaring that the same logic that drove
those men and women assembled at the ZANU Gweru Congress in
May 1964 to declare war on the Smith regime is the same logic that
leads people now to declare that 'enough is enough' … Under similar
circumstances … people will pry open the citadels of power no matter
how long it takes.
In this way Sithole inverted ZTV's propositions - in his version ZANU/PF proclaimed
'the end of history': the MDC had inherited the revolutionary tradition.
In the same issue of the Gazette Ivhu Kulvhu proclaimed 'Let us all go and free
Zimbabwe!' The MDC would win 'a victory of the future'. But it would also restore the
past:
We will fight tooth and nail to recover the bright colours of Zimbabwe …
We are all descendants of great kings and queens and need to be
treated like royalty … Through the perpetuation of ignorance among
the people by rehashing the past Mugabe is trying to ensure a power
strangle-hold [but] the people will catch him naked on March 9 and 10 …
History has its appointed time for every living soul and people. For
Dzimbahwe the time is nigh. This country will never be a colony of
dictators again.
5
While the nation was waiting for the election results on March 12, Dumisani
Nkomo made a sustained critique of ZANU/PF's style of nationalist history in the Daily
News:
It has become self evident that ZANU/PF has failed dismally to
transform itself from a mass nationalist/liberation movement into
a ruling or governing party. They appear neither able nor willing to
formulate a vision for the future of Zimbabwe. They appear to be more
content with living in the past than learning from it. While we salute
the gallantry of our nationalist fathers, we cannot afford to pontificate
about the past when the country is on the verge of collapse. We should
honour ZANU/PF by giving it its rightful place - that is in the political
archives and museums of this nation … Our nationalist fathers have
led us out of the Egypt, that land of colonial oppression, but beyond
that they do not seem to have a clue of the location of the promised
land. The people of Zimbabwe have been to the mountaintop and seen
the Promised Land. Nothing will stop us as a nation from marching into
the future.
This debate about history reveals that the election was fought not so much
between two political parties, but between 'good' and 'evil'. On the one side it looked like
a mortal combat between 'patriots' and 'traitors'; on the other side it appeared a fight to the
death between 'tyrants' and 'democrats'. It seemed a unique moment.There was at least
one observer, however, who drew on history to reveal that nothing much had changed
over the last forty years. On 25 December 2001 'Chapwititi' wrote to the Daily News from
Kwekwe. His letter particularly interested me since it quoted a piece I had myself written
in the cyclostyled periodical, Dissent, on 20 October 1960. I had completely forgotten it
and read it with astonishment. It attacked Sir Edgar Whitehead's use of troops in the
African townships, the random violence visited on 'law-abiding Africans', the use of
armed police to crush political opposition. It offered a sketch of Whitehead's personality:
Sir Edgar has personal qualities which make him a dreadful danger
to the peace and prosperity of Southern Rhodesia. The very quality
of his intelligence makes him contemptuous of 'emotional' attitudes
and thus uncomprehending of them. And yet emotional attitudes are
the stuff of politics. Sir Edgar is inhumanly remote and inaccessible.
He has a cold conviction in the excellence of his plans and a ruthless
determination to push them through despite all opposition. He has
none of the humanity, the generosity, none even of the alarm that the
situation requires … If the situation is to be saved Sir Edgar must be
removed from office.
'Chapwititi' pointed out that recent headlines read 'Bread Riots Rock Harare' and
'Renewed call to impeach Mugabe'. He added:
History sure has a tendency of repeating itself!
6
YOUTH
The government has instituted a controversial youth training scheme, which at the
moment is taking only 'volunteers' but which is intended to become a compulsory
national service. It has been said that no matter what the educational level of youth when
they enter the scheme, successful passing out of it will qualify them for entry to
university. It has also been said that the scheme will provide training in practical skills.
But above all, the scheme has also been justified in terms of history. The Herald on
January 28 2002 reported that 'the Government will soon make youth training
compulsory for all school leavers to instill unbiased history of Zimbabwe'. According to
the Herald, school-teachers and parents had failed in their patriotic duty. Young people
did not know true Zimbabwean culture or history and war veterans would instruct them.
But as the alleged graduates from the first Youth Training centre - the Border Gezi Camp
- appeared on the streets they received an appalled reception from many:
They can use their mouths these gangsters [wrote 'VeMaromo' in the
Independent on 21 December 2001]. They are so foul-mouthed you
wonder if their Zimbabwean culture and history was really part of
their curricula. If it was, then we have a bad culture and a horrible
history.
Thousands of green-uniformed youth were deployed all over the country -
many more than could have been trained in one centre. They were recruited from
unemployed boys and girls in the urban townships - one columnist in the Daily News
lamented that his own son had joined the youth, saying it was better than doing nothing
and earning no money. They were given basic training in military drill and put under the
command of war veterans. Wearing T-shirts marked 'Chimurenga Three', they were sent
out to defend and to extend the revolution. They were used as electoral shock troops - to
erect barriers on roads, to beat people who could not produce ZANU/PF cards, to attack
MDC activists. I heard many reports of their activities, ranging from West to East
Zimbabwe. 6
Often these reports were half sympathetic. 'They are the hungriest and dirtiest
people in the rural areas', said a headmaster from Tsholotsho in Matabeleland. A
detachment of youth was encamped near his school, with little food and no soap. In
Mutare district I heard of fights over food between youths in their bush-camps and of
begging for food from door to door. Not surprisingly these tattered and hungry youths
expressed great resentment against teachers and civil servants and against secondary and
university students. They became the exponents of a 'Cultural Revolution' already begun
by war-veterans in their attacks on Councils and District Administrators and civil
servants. I heard of two girls from the University of Zimbabwe, returning home to
Glendale for the university vacation. As they got off the bus they were waylaid by
6 On March 1 2002 the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum reported that youth 'militia groups are still in
operation around the country with the size of groups varying from groups of between 20-30 to those that
operate in their hundreds. Most bases have been established at schools and growth points … centres to be
used as polling stations. The report gave details of 113 such bases.
7
ZANU/PF youth. 'We have been waiting for you. You have not played your part. As a
punishment, stand on your heads for ten minutes'. The girls wobbled on their heads, skirts
around their faces, but could not last the ten minutes. So they were rolled in the mud
instead and told to report to the pungwe next morning for further discipline. They took a
bus back to Harare that night. Many students and faculty at the university told me that
their parents had ordered them not to try to come home to the rural areas: 'It is like the
1970s war' the mothers said.
In the Mutare countryside I heard the fullest report about the youth. My hostess
was a human rights activist, working with refugees, who grew up speaking chi-manyika.
She and her husband live on a piece of land carved out of one of the small holdings
allocated to white ex-servicemen after the second world war. 'You only have a yard. It is
of no interest to us', they were told by land occupiers. But the small-holding next door to
them was occupied by settlers from the Honde Valley: my friends laid on piped water for
their new neighbours. They were invited to a tree-planting day at the settlement. In the
middle of the ceremony a band of green-uniformed youth arrived and laid on a show.
They marched to the shouted commands of an ex-combatant. At the shout of 'Mugabe!'
they saluted smartly: at the shout of 'Tsvangarai!' they thrust and twisted imaginary
bayonets into his innards. The settlers were embarassed and irritated, not knowing where
the youth had come from or who they were. Thereafter the youth camped in the bush on
the opposite side of the road from my friends. They were seen brandishing a huge whip,
stopping people on the road and taking them into the bush for a beating if they had no
party card. My friend went to the nearby mission station to tell the minister in charge
what was going on and to ask his advice: he said that the ZANU/PF boss in the area was
a Methodist lay preacher; they went to see him; he drove my friend back to the youth
camp. 'You are not to worry this lady' he told them. She said they hadn't worried her: it
was everyone else she was worried about. OK, then, he said, 'this lady is my spy. If you
do anything bad she will report straight to me'. She disavowed any intention to serve as a
spy. In the end he told them that she was a minister of religion and would give them
scripture lessons! But it was not fear of the Old Testament which eventually got rid of
them just before the elections. They chased an old man who was crossing their field and
when he fled they captured his two wives and children and shut them up in a hut: the old
man went to complain and found an army truck at the police station: the soldiers came
and ordered the youth off their patch. Stories like these could be repeated all over
Zimbabwe.
RELIGION
This mobilisation of youth was deeply resented by parents - 'You take our
children' said one woman to the Governor of Manicaland. 'You twist and break them.
Then you give them back to us to deal with'. It was strongly condemned by the churches.
I attended the Catholic cathedral in Bulawayo one Sunday. The outspoken Archbishop
Pius Ncube was not there but a young back priest preached for almost an hour. He spoke
in Sindebele, Shona and English. His text was Satan tempting Jesus on the mountain top.
Temptation was being offered in Zimbabwe, he said, especially to the youth. Nobody
would give them a proper job or a proper salary. Instead the patrons offered youth just
8
enough to tempt them and to make them dependent. They might even feel a sense of
achievement and power, lording it over their elders. But they must put the Cross into
whatever they did and then they would see that what they had been offered was from
Satan. 'We are going backwards. We used to have lions everywhere who tore and clawed.
Now we don't have lions so we are acting like them ourselves'. Illustrating the violence
which now reigned, he picked up the heavy wooden drum next to the choir and pretended
to dash out their brains.
Less dramatically, the Jesuits issued an 'Appeal to Youth' on February 6:
Unemployed young people are being recruited for the work of beating,
stoning, burning and maybe even killing their own fathers, mothers,
brothers and sisters. The present attempts to re-educate and indoctrinate
the youth into values which are alien to the African family are an attack
on the family and on the rights of parents. Unscrupulous political
leaders are training youth in violence, not only for the present but
for a life-time.
It reminded the Jesuits of the Hitler Youth League. 'The Jesuits in Zimbabwe have
decided that, in the present crisis of violence and anarchy, we shall do what we can to
prevent such violence and when we can, to protect potential victims of such violence.
Wherever we are able we shall provide places of sanctuary, places where we insist that no
violence shall take place. We shall not be able to physically defend such places of
sanctuary against forceful entry by people of violence. However, with the help of God,
we hoped to establish a moral force.'
The Jesuits have been accused by government spokesmen of setting up 'safe
houses' for terrorists. Archbishop Pius Ncube has been under regular attack. This
climaxed on February 21 when President Mugabe addressed a rally in Lupane. Mugabe
accused Ncube of frustrating hospital development. 'I don't know whether we pray to the
same God with this man. We will respect him if he remains within the confines of the
church but once he shows his political tentacles we will cut them short.'
At the same time that Mugabe attacked church critics, he sought to woo other
types of Christian. At a prayer day in Harare in February Mugabe addressed an audience
which included 'hundreds of the Madzibaba Nzira's Apostolic sect members, holding and
lifting placards inscribed with ZANU/PF political messages … They sang a chimurenga
song as they were toyi-toying.' The new Anglican Bishop of Harare, Kunonga, told
Mugabe that he had put all Christians to shame by distributing land: 'Actually, you have
been more merciful than God Himself!' Baba Nzira announced a prophecy that Mugabe
was 'divinely appointed King of Zimbabwe and no man should dare challenge his office.'
Meanwhile ZANU/PF were calling upon spirit mediums to come together and call
upon the ancestors in support of Mugabe. 'The last thing that the ancestors of this country
would want to know is that the country many people died for was going back to the same
British who massacred thousands of Zimbabweans'. (The MDC in its turn visited Njelele
9
shrine in the Matopos: the government-supporting Sunday News of 10 February carried a
cartoon showing the High God speaking from His cave and saying that 'he doesn't want to
speak to British puppets').
The President and party were prepared to make use of anything that might have
popular appeal, whether Christian or traditional. But the ZTV history programmes
mounted a concerted attack on Christianity:
Christians in Zimbabwe today are continually bombarded with
blatant characterisations of their faith as unAfrican and a form of
mental colonisation by 'white supremacist Western Christian civilisation'
[complained Reverend Noah Pashapa on 13 February]. This onslaught
confronts us weekly via the television under the guise of the black
African renaissance.
Pashapa insisted that Christianity was older in African than in Europe; the Old Testament
was African. Adam was black; Egypt was black: Sheba was black. Christianity could
share in the decolonisation of Zimbabwe.
ASSASSINATION
I have been trying to give an impression of the controversial atmosphere in
Zimbabwe as I found it at the end of January and again in mid February when I returned
from Australia. But my last night in Australia - February 13 - was all too relevant. It was
the night of the now notorious tv programme which launched the charge that Tsvangarai
was planning Mugabe's assassination. I watched it with a sinking heart. It was clear that
the programme as a whole would never be shown on ZTV: much of it was a report on
ZANU/PF youth violence. But then came the hazy black and white footage from the
video recording of the 'meeting in Montreal'. The programme ended with the Australian
reporter saying that counter to appearances the worst threat to democracy in Zimbabwe
came not from the obviously authoritarian Mugabe but from the apparently democratic
Tsvangarai. Watching it that night, it seemed likely to me that Tsvangarai would be
arrested before the election. When I got back to Zimbabwe, however, things looked less
dramatic. ZANU/PF had been saying for such a long time that the MDC were criminals
and terrorists; that they had master-minded bank robberies in South Africa; that they had
sent anthrax to officials and editors; that the British were planning to use the MDC for
post-election violence - in view of all this the assassination allegation came as just one
more thing. It was clear that the government had known about it for weeks and had
planned the revelation and its exploitation very carefully. It became obvious that
Tsvangarai was not going to be arrested before the election: the trap had been laid for use
after the election.
Of course, use was made of the allegation during the election campaign itself.
Addressing a rally in Makoni, Mugabe reminded his audience that Chingaira, Chief
Makoni in 1896, had been executed by the British. Chingaira's head, said Mugabe, had
been cut off and taken to Britain. And now they wanted Mugabe's own head! During the
10
video of Tsvangarai talking to Menashe in Montreal there had been discussion of the
MDC's funding: Tsvangarai had said that funds came from Sweden and Norway among
others. This was said in reference to general funding and had nothing to do with the
assassination allegation. Nevertheless, the Herald of 22 February, chose to claim that
these were:
stunning revelations in which Sweden and Norway are said by
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangarai to have provided funds for the
assassination of President Mugabe. This, with the express approval
of the Americans and other so-called members of the international
community, is indeed shocking. We will not brook any nonsense from
these countries, now that their motives are clear. We understand now why
the European Union sent a Swedish to 'lead' its uninvited 'observers'.
And so, casually, the long and carefully worked for relationship with Sweden was cast
aside.
More elegant was the best election slogan of the campaign, a ZANU/PF
advertisement which read: 'Which would you vote for? A plot to kill, or a plot to till?'
THE ELECTION: IBBO MANDAZA'S ANALYSIS.
An important question was obviously whether the assassination allegations would
have any effect on electoral support for Tsvangirai. Almost nobody appeared to believe
them but he emerged as naïve , even foolish, to have walked straight into the trap.
Someone said to me in Bulawayo: 'The question is do we vote for an idiot or for that
clever old bastard?' Her answer was that it was necessary to deflate the mystique of
leadership and that it was necessary to vote for an ordinary, if foolish, man.
A different answer was offered by 'The Scrutator' (Dr Ibbo Mandaza) in The
Mirror of 22 to 28 February. Mandaza insisted that the key issue in the election had now
become that of 'viability and the capacity to manage the Zimbabwean polity'. The general
election in June 2000 was essentially anti-ZANU/PF.. But the presidential election
focussed attention on the capacity of the candidates - and Tsvangarai looked less and less
capable. Moreover, Mandaza argued, 'the opposition party has no formal organizational
structures and less so in the rural areas', while ZANU/PF 'has over the period since the
general election revived its structures from the cell to branch levels'. It had 'spread its
tentacles everywhere, through the revival and formation of new cells, branches and
districts in every province. According to one estimate there are as many as 2.8 million
office holders in the entire ZANU/PF party structures.' Mandaza added that 'apathy' was
'much lower in the rural areas'. Adding all this together, he predicted a majority for
Mugabe of over a million votes. In the event the announced majority was less than half a
million.
One might ask whether Mandaza's analysis - 'it is almost impossible for President
Mugabe to lose' - held any water. One answer might be that the 'capacity' factor counted
11
for almost nothing; the propaganda about history and heritage spoke only to the already
persuaded; the uses of religion cancelled themselves out. But the revival of ZANU/PF
party structures did play a significant role. I was told that several faculty of the University
of the Midlands carried out research on voter apathy. Everywhere they went they found
newly established ZANU/PF branches on the ground. This was enough to make them
predict a ZANU/PF win. (Of course, a parallel process was going on: MDC branches in
the rural areas were being driven underground or wiped out altogether).
THE ELECTION: MDC OPTIMISM AND DESPAIR
From where I actually saw the election there seemed to be quite a different
scenario. MDC supporters - or in many cases it would be more accurate to say Mugabe
opponents - knew that ZANU/PF had revived its branches and that the party had taken
over control of the rural areas from the state. They knew that many people had been
excluded from the franchise - the Zimbabweans overseas; the farm workers whose
parents had come from Malawi or Zambia or Mozambique, together with many whites.
They knew that violence and intimidation had been widespread. Nevertheless, they still
thought that they could win and went on thinking so right up to the declaration of results.
MDC believed that it could win the elections even in areas - like northern Matabeleland -
where its branches had been wiped out. It believed that ZANU/PF violence had been
counter-productive and that people were determined to vote against it. It believed that
people had become sickened by the relentless repetition of propaganda. Time and time
again I was told that there had been a great swing against Mugabe.
It was these assumptions which seemed best to explain what I actually saw over
the weekend of voting. On Saturday March 9 I went out with friends to see them voting
in rural Mutare and in Honde Valley constituencies. I saw voters coming in to the polling
stations cautiously, looking around them to see whether the 'Border Gezi' youth were still
lying in waiting. I saw them emerge from the polling booth triumphant, saying 'We must
tell all the others to come!' A man informed that he would have to go to vote in Sakubva
township in Mutare declared that he would certainly do so: 'The time has come to tell the
truth'. As news spread that the poll was safe many people, who had previously decided
not to risk a vote came out and voted. That day there was a joyous air in eastern
Manicaland. On the train that night back to Harare a conductor responded to my remark
that it was like 1980 by saying: 'It is much more important than 1980'. When I got to
Harare I heard of a huge turnout and of the queues at the polls. I phoned my historian
friend to hear that she and her husband had queued for 12 hours to vote: later that day I
met someone who had waited for 18 hours, her daughter bringing her regular meals to the
queue. She was proud of having voted and full of hope. A radical human rights activist
was joyful that Sunday, predicting an avalanche of votes against Mugabe. A Jamaican
journalist told me that if he was asked by Time magazine to nominate the person of the
year he would propose 'the Zimbabwean voter': he would never himself abstain from
voting now that he had seen how important it was to Zimbabweans.
There was so much hope that the announced result stunned people. Judy Todd
sent me an email from Bulawayo: 'So many people have been really, physically sick after
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hearing the results. It's like a crushing, leaving people feeling leaden, body and soul and
mind … not only has the election been stolen, hope has been stolen too'.
AFTER THE ELECTION
How did this happen? Were the hopes false? Did the Mandaza analysis prove
right after all? At this point I turn from my personal observations - I flew back to Britain
on the day after the voting and before the results had been declared.
As the days passed back in Oxford and as I received emails from Zimbabwe I
began to realise that my experiences of the voting had themselves been misleading. The
Churches in Manicaland - a wonderfully wide-ranging combination of denominations -
issued a statement on 15 March. It 'recognised that largely peaceful conditions prevailed
in our province during the days of voting', just as I had observed. But it went on:
polling agents and members of support groups of the opposition
party were harassed, beaten and detained … independent observers,
including church observers, were also detained … because of the
absence of agents and observers, serious doubts have been raised
regarding the security of the ballots both during and at the close of
the voting period. A number of listed polling stations did not open
during the polling days. A number of unlisted polling stations were
opened without due notice … A considerable number of voters in
our province were unable to vote freely.
The figures appended to this report show that both the MDC and ZANU/PF ended up
with 48% of the Manicaland vote. This was partly due to the overwhelming vote given to
ZANU/PF in Didymus Mutasa's stronghold of Makoni North; otherwise it seems likely to
have been due to the processes denounced by the Churches in Manicaland.
As for Harare and Chitungwiza, the figure to note is the 47.3% voter participation
rate. No manipulation could prevent a 75% vote for Tsvangarai nor the election both in
Harare and Chitungwiza of an MDC mayor and a full slate of MDC councillors. [In
Harare the MDC candidate, Elias Mudzuri, polled 262,275 votes against his rival's
56,796; in Chitungwiza the MDC candidate, Mishek Shoko, polled 47,340 votes against
16,953] But the key factor in the presidential election was that half the enrolled urban
voters did not cast their ballots. This was certainly not, as Mandaza asserted, because
urban apathy was greater than rural. It was because there were very few polling stations
in the urban areas, working very slowly, and because police drove away thousands of
would-be voters at the close of the polls on the third day. The Minister for Information,
Jonathan Moyo, issued a cynical but realistic comment while the voting was still going
on.. People should not draw conclusions from the huge queues in Harare, he said. These
queues were not a sign of extraordinary enthusiasm but were caused by inadequate
provision for the poll. In any case, 'Harare is not Zimbabwe'. The election would be won
in the rural areas where there were many polling stations!
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Indeed, the low urban voting rate was a contrast to huge voting figures in rural
districts which I did not visit and could not have visited. In the misleadingly named
Mashonaland Central province, which contains the far northern districts of Mount Darwin
and Rushinga, those two constituencies supposedly recorded voter turn-outs of 69.2%
and 71.8%. They voted 90% for Mugabe. The Daily News of 29 January had alerted its
readers to the plight of 'Mashonaland Central: an enclave crying out for help':
The countryside is virtually under seige … The most affected province
is Mashonaland Central. This has never happened in 22 years of
independence, except in the Midlands and Matabeleland during the
dissident era … well-oiled and well-paid thugs operate openly … The
liberation struggle started in earnest in Mashonaland Central in 1971.
The province has at least one war veteran, born and bred, in almost
every village. Their major shortcoming was lack of education [which]
disqualified them from being attested into the national army at
independence. They were quickly demobilised and retired to the village …
When President Mugabe came under pressure in 2000 Mashonaland
Central became his natural base. War veterans in the area became ready
allies, keen to regain lost pride and glory. Their survival and future prospects
lay in the new-look violent ZANU/PF … [There are] pathetic levels of
underdevelopment in the province. To most peasants here ZANU/PF is
the only source of formal work ... invading farms, flushing out the
opposition, mounting roadblocks. The violence in Mashonaland Central
is linked to poverty, underdevelopment, limited choices and neglect. It is a
statement, a desperate outlet for respect and recognition. It has become a
way of life.
There was never any doubt that Mashonaland North would vote for Mugabe. The
question was how many votes would be counted. In the days after the election we heard
opposition allegations of how the huge recorded vote was obtained. Affadavits sworn on
16 March testified that in Rushinga 'all polling agents were chased away on the counting
day'. These agents had noted 19,000 voters casting ballots. 27,000 votes were announced.
'The difference is irreconcilable'. In Mount Darwin South 'all polling agents from the 45
stations were chased away by the Police and state agents ... They were vulnerable to the
ZANU/PF militia from the Border Gezi camp'. They fled back to Harare. But before they
left they recorded that 'most people were told that they should vote on Saturday for
ZANU/PF and not MDC because Tsvangarai was arrested and his whereabouts not
known'. In Mount Darwin North agents were arrested, detained and tortured.
The detailed voting figures appended to this report give an accurate idea of how
the country is divided - despite everything the MDC took the towns, western Zimbabwe
and eastern Zimbabwe. Nkayi and Lupane in northern Matabeleland suffered great
violence and were the site of very many youth militia camps: Mugabe told the people at
rallies that they had made a mistake in the June 2000 general election but that he would
welcome them back. They gave a majority to Tsvangarai. ZANU/PF youth announced
that they had 'liberated' Bulawayo which I found edgy and scared when I visited it - far
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from its usual relaxed self. But Bulawayo repudiated Mugabe in the vote. My guess
would be that violence failed to deter Tsvangarai supporters from voting. But it seems to
have been the exclusions and the inclusions - the de-registration of so many voters; the
closing of the urban polls when so many thousands had not voted; and perhaps the
bumping up of voting figures in the rural areas - which determined the issue. [The MDC
alleges that half a million additional 'votes' were added to the actual total].
AFTERMATHS
I began this report with the debate over history and with the alleged assassination
plot. Probably neither played a key role in determining the election result. Both, however,
are shaping the aftermath. African states have accepted the results while African churches
and human rights groups have repudiated them. State leaders accept ZANU/PF history.
Yoweri Museveni , for example, despite having been at war with Zimbabwe in the
Congo, told Ugandan m.ps on 14 March:
We are people in suits by day, but in uniform at night. We fought
a liberation war. Don't play around with freedom fighters, you can
see Mugabe. Liberation armies are not like these mercenary ones
which earn salaries. We fought and we can still fight. Even if
Morgan Tsvangarai had won, do you think Mugabe would have
accepted? Oh ho! You are playing with fire!
The Monitor which reported these remarks on 15 March added that they echoed 'those
made by Libyan leader Col.Muammar Gadhafi … that revolutionaries shouldn't be
subjected to elections or hand over power'.
As for the assassination allegation much more will be heard of that now the
election is over. Even before the result was announced Welshman Ncube was arrested
and charged with treason. South African entreaties that Mugabe should now form a
government of national unity were hopeless. Tsvangarai and the MDC were so
demonised during the election that no reconciliation is possible. It seems certain that the
government will seek to break up the opposition.
The youth militias are still active and the churches are still divided. Archbishop
Pius Ncube describes the new presidency as 'illegal' and refused to attend Mugabe's
inauguration. Two other Catholic bishops did attend, however, and the secretary of the
Catholic Bishops' Conference said that the church 'must reflect the plurality of people and
differences and not fan differences.'
Meanwhile ZANU/PF and MDC emerge from the election with two rather
different responsibilities. ZANU/PF has to handle a national situation of immediate
hunger and of the impending failure of the harvest. MDC has to handle the crises of
accommodation and services in Harare and Chitungwiza. It should give them both quite
enough to do.
