The peaceful nature of the 2000 elections was short-lived, and the tone of elections became more violent in subsequent years. Every election since 2000 has been marred by reports of extreme cases of pre- and post-election intimidation, fraud, and violence. The state became more militant; voters especially in rural areas in the ZANU-PF base were bullied into attending political rallies and turnout to vote in the elections (L. M. Sachikonye, 2002b). While the actual day of the election has always been relatively peaceful; the environment leading up to and after elections has not allowed for an even playing field.
After the 2005 election, the government initiated the infamous Operation Restore Order, which resulted in the displacement and deaths of over 700,000 urbanites. The ruling party adopted strategies of political violence to suppress opposition support. A vocal ZANU-PF critic, Margaret Dongo, accused the government of implementing the policy to punish urbanites for voting for the opposition. In nearly every election, the opposition reported that their campaign
teams found it difficult to reach rural areas because of increased roadblocks and military presence. The opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai often had his life threatened, including an unfortunate event when he was beaten to an inch of his life at a police station after going in to negotiate the release of his supporters.
In 2008, Zimbabwe held its most contentious elections yet. The harmonized elections in March 2008 had been anticipated to bring the much needed regime change. If the economy had declined in the early part of the 2000s, by 2008 there was no economy to speak of. The shops where empty, most children had been pulled out of school, and the hospitals were not
functioning. The remaining Zimbabweans were struggling to leave the country. It was a fight for survival. One interviewee said this:
“By 2008 I was at the UZ (University of Zimbabwe) and things were bad. We would illegally jump on trains to go to Botswana to look for piece jobs (part time work) for the weekend. South Africa was no longer an option, they required a visa and that cost money. I tried boarder jumping but I saw people dying in the Limpopo.”
The excerpt above is representative of the struggles facing the majority of Zimbabweans at the time. There were no economic classes, and,those who remained in Zimbabwe were living a pre- industrial life of butter trade. Another interviewee added this:
“The situation for us was that we would ask around the neighborhood, who has a bread-maker, who has a garden and we would exchange. One person would get the bread or the tomatoes, that is how we survived 200.8”
Despite these conditions, voters turned out in the millions. Voters posted results from their polling stations on social networks such as WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter and via text messages. The results circulating on the Internet and by word of mouth indicated an outright MDC win. The initial official results announced for the House of Assembly candidates also pointed to an MDC landslide win. However, after a few days of the initial parliamentary results being announced, there was silence: no official results came in until three weeks later ,causing the world to suspect foul play. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) employees
interviewed for this project argued that the delay was due to court cases that were brought to the Supreme Court by the opposition in two districts demanding a recount of local results. They argued that the national election results could not be announced until all the court cases related to local elections had been resolved. Additionally, ZEC bemoaned the lack of resources in the running of the election. They argued that the organization was under equipped to run the election in a timely fashion.
Meanwhile in Harare, members of civil society who had been camping outside the ZEC headquarters daily waiting to write post-election reports were asked to go back to their offices and would be called back when the results were ready. Any and all broadcasting of the election became an illegal activity. Zimbabweans and the world waited for over one month before the election results would be announced. The official results indicated that none of the presidential candidates had an outright win. Robert Mugabe lost the election with only 43 percent of the vote, the third candidate Simba Makoni managed to get 8 percent of the vote, and Morgan
TsvangiraiTsvangirai’s second bid for the presidency had failed with 49 percent of the vote – just shy of the two percent for the required 51 percent majority win. Most did not even know of this rule. Voters would have to go back to the polls to choose a new leader between the two front-
runners: Robert Mugabe of ZANU-PF and MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai. The period leading up to the run-off election was brutal and likened to the days of liberation struggle. Rural dwellers, especially those suspected of being sympathetic to the opposition, were often the subject of violent attacks.
In this chapter, I have attempted to set the stage for introducing my theory of party survival for ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe. I also provide background of the political situation in Zimbabwe. In the next chapter, I discuss in greater detail the theory of party survival. My theory is that the exit of voters due to migration and to violence from the political processes bolstered the survival of the ZANU-PF regime. In chapter three, I discuss the role of migration in sustaining the survival of ZANU-PF. I show that the profile of the average Zimbabwean
emigrant – young, urban, and educated – is also the profile of the opposition supporter. Their exit weakened the opposition base. In chapter four, I discuss the role of violence in Zimbabwean politics in the last decade. I argue that ZANU-PF employed strategies of intimidation and violence to suppress opposition turnout all the while mobilizing turnout among their base. In chapter five, I conclude the project and connect the impact of external and internal exit on the survival of ZANU-PF in their last decade.
2 AN UNCONSIDERED THEORY OF EXIT AND PARTY SURVIVAL
My theory is that the voluntary and/or involuntary exit of voters from the political process can serve to bolster ruling parties, weaken opposition support bases, and thus contribute significantly to ruling party survival. When voters exit their countries in response to unfavorable conditions, either economic or political, their exit is beneficial to ruling parties that might be facing possible electoral defeat. I argue that the majority of voters in autocratic regimes who
emigrate are more likely to support the opposition over incumbent parties. Large-scale voter exodus diminished Zimbabweans’ willingness to challenge the regime and lowered support for the opposition party. I propose that the exit of voters who could not participate in elections contributed significantly to the survival of ZANU-PF and subsequently to the weakening of opposition support.
A second part of this argument is that ruling parties also use their monopoly of state policymaking structures to implement policies that force opposition supporters to exit the
political system. Incumbents make use of intimidation and other forms of electoral fraud to force opposition supporters to exit the political process, even if they do not emigrate out of the
country. Collier and Vicente (2010) have argued that autocratic parties such as ZANU-PF and the former ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Nigeria use violence to mobilize voter turnout. I add that violence and other fraudulent activities can also be used by incumbents to suppress the turnout of opposition supporters whilst mobilizing turnout among their own support base. Intimidation and other acts of election fraud will force opposition voters to withdraw from politics because the real danger of risking their lives does not outweigh the potential benefits of the election outcome. Reports of vote fraud and stolen elections can also lead to voter apathy, especially in situations where the economy is failing and voters are more concerned with economic survival.
The goal of this chapter is threefold: First, to discuss the existing literature on party survival and identify significant gaps; second, to identify how each of the previously adopted theoretical explanations further our understanding of the Zimbabwean situation; and third, to detail my explanation of the role of exit on party survival.