Debating Zimbabwe's Reconfigured Political Economy and the Forthcoming 2018 Elections.

The Prospects of a ‘Grand Coalition’ in Zimbabwe’s 2018 Elections: An Ideological Lens. 

Dr Toendepi Shonhe*

This article locates the proposed opposition coalition within Zimbabwe’s comprehensively changing political economy in its attempt to assess the potential for regime change in 2018. There appears to be somewhat growing consensus that a grand coalition is the ultimate answer to the complex and regressive challenges in Zimbabwe. This article posits that the proponents and architects of the ‘grand’ coalition may somehow be both simplistic and green in exaggerating the usefulness of this solo tactic.   In his chapter in Zimbabwe’s Prospects in 1988, writing about ‘Trade Union Organisation and the Working class’ Brian Woods observed that ‘For emergent nations on the periphery of world capitalism, where class and strata relations are usually more volatile and reflect a wider variety of non-capitalist processes, the existing theory is often misleading and can appear distinctively Eurocentric’. Yet other scholars concede that not much transformation took place in the first decade after independence given the constraints imposed by the limitations and power dynamics associated with the Lancaster House settlement. For instance, Arnold Sibanda in the same book, was quick to observe that ‘with the transformation of the mode of production not being seriously on the agenda, the new state could only tackle the most glaring features of neo-colonialism’ resulting in token reforms in the form of Africanisation of the public sector and parastatals. 

The Reconfigured Political Economy

However, post 2000, immense structural changes in the economy – property relations, social and labour relations culminating in today’s artisan economy may have gone unnoticed by the opposition. I raise this point because the grand coalition strategy seems to be resting on the democracy and transition narrative propounded by scholars within the liberties and neopatrimonialism framework where the tendency has been to adopt a narrow definition of the state and civil society and as such miss many variables at play. It is important to reveal that beyond the electoral law flaws and systemic repression by state agents, Zanu PF’s redistributive agenda in response to threats at power from 2000 have had far-reaching consequences on the political economy of the country such that it is idle for the architects of the coalition to pose serious questions beforehand. Raftopoulos put it squarely well in his post 2013 election assessment that Zanu PF has retained a substantial social base and ‘Moreover the maintenance of this social base has not been based solely on violence and coercion but on a combination of the ideological legacies of the liberation struggle, the persistent memories of colonial dispossession, and the land reform process’. 

Following these observations and Fontein’s 2009 conclusion that the radical changes in land ownership appealed to some localised aspirations despite the corrupt, politicised and violent nature of the process, Jos Martens was later to observe on 14 August 2013 that: Returning to the overarching question, it remains to be seen whether MDC would have won the 2013 elections if no rigging had taken place.

Mbare Musika: A Captured ZANU PF Territory?

Mbare Musika: A Captured ZANU PF Territory

What would you have voted if you had been that communal dweller who had received a fertile piece of land; if your small mine claim had just been registered; if you were a jobless ex-farm worker; if your small business was gradually getting off the ground (whom would you credit?);  if you had lost your livelihood under Murambatsvina in 2008; if you had just received U$1,500 dollar at the tobacco auction; if you had been struggling with corrupt MDC council officials about a plot for your house; if you had a job in a mine and were hoping to get a share of it?

Assessing the utility and relevance of a grand coalition and electoral reforms must be done in a manner that takes into account the changing political economy in Zimbabwe. The politics of coalitions in Zimbabwe must be carried out from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives as this will help in bolstering the coalition that emerges as we move into the 2018 elections. The question of numbers is the easiest of all. To begin with, the MDC won the 2008 election but failed to seize state power due to some qualitative issues that are yet to be resolved. These issues included limited strategic thinking, absence of

timely and effective intelligence, deficiencies in state craftiness and inferior infrastructural capacity to compete with the vast governmental scheme that is underpinned by state bureaucracy and state security. Will a grand coalition disentangle this circumstance? 

Reclaiming the Political Economy

Even though some of the structural changes to the economy have been retrogressive and impact negatively on citizens’ livelihoods, the changes have worked favourably regarding the advancement of Zanu PF patronage system. The emerging classes and groupings are ‘captured’ by poverty, fear and the patronage system. Over 2 million artisan miners - makorokoza are controlled by the ruling party.

Panning for Gold

 Over 3 million voters in the farming areas are in no-go areas for the opposition and thank the party for their progress. A few and diminishing Zim PF and NPP supporters are scurrying for cover, mostly back to the Zanu PF ambit. As Raftopoulos noted, the news forms by which Zanu PF and state organs have penetrated these new social relations have changed the way the ruling party dominates the spaces. The farmers are organised through village heads while the informal miners are now more organised and directly linked to Zanu PF structures, as Mawowa and Martens have already highlighted. Jos Martens therefore concludes: Add to this the continued exclusion of maybe more than 2 million voters (almost a quarter of the electorate!) living outside Zimbabwe and the open threats from army and police bigwigs that they would never accept Tsvangirai as president and it becomes clear that the stage for the elections had been set much earlier

Moreover, the urban population has also been ‘arrested’ by poverty and are living on hand to mouth, mainly through Zanu PF controlled infrastructure of violence and patronage. The vendors at Siyaso, Glen View and other centers spread across the cities and growth points operate at the whims of Zanu PF lords while urban stands being dispensed on partisan grounds all speak to the growing multi-faceted patronage network. The civil servants housing project must be understood from the same viewpoint. How will the grand coalition reverse this trend?

The Contours of Electoral Fraud

Much of the rigging by Zanu PF is done prior and outside the actual polling station. The rigging machinery operates on three levels: patronage, violence and fear and the tampering with the voting system, including the voters roll. The elaborate reliance on the Traditional leadership to coerce citizens to vote for Zanu PF is well known, yet no counter strategy has been developed to mitigate on its impact. The fear brought about by violence in particular leading up to the 2008 presidential run up remains in force among the voters betraying an urgent need to restore confidence and re-inspire the voter. Beyond this, the vote must be protected. Is the grand coalition structured to achieve these? If so, how? 

The voter registration process is already being manipulated in favour of Zanu PF. The party machinery and the state bureaucracy are working hand in glove to ensure all party supporters are hived into the register way before the actual registration process, such that potential opposition sympathisers will inevitably be disenfranchised. To this end, the Biometric system is designed not to clean the voters’ roll and bring about transparency in the voting system, it is intended to cast a shadow over the whole process.

Testing of BVR Kits

The rigging machinery remains intact under the management of ZEC a superstructure co-managed by the uniformed forces through the Joint Operations Command at its various levels. Absolutely nothing has changed regarding the way elections will be managed in 2018. There are no prospects for further reform due to well established Zanu PF longstanding intransigence and lack of focus and strategy on the part of the opposition. The Bikita election exposed the fact that not all Zanu PF functionaries, including former VP Mujuru, were in the know about the goings on regarding electoral manipulations, putting paid prospects for the grand coalition gaining advantage for 2018. The grand coalition may re-assert the quantitative superiority back to 2008 levels at best but it will do much less in changing the strategic deficiencies of 2008 and 2013.

The Essence of Electoral Victory

The essence of electoral victory is about time, people and resources. We have established that Zanu PF has captured the majority of the suffering citizens through fear, poverty and patronage. There is no need to belabour this point, suffice to say, it is difficult to conceive how the opposition in its various strands; coalition or not, will be able to reverse this reality. What level of hope will inspire the population to bolt out of the chains of fear and patronage? Can the grand coalition offer such level of hope? At this stage, much of this remains clouded in uncertainty and is difficult to perceive. Regarding time, the country has at least 12 months to the next election. How these will be used by the opposition to reverse some of the vices already observed or by the ruling party to consolidate its hold is subject to access to effective intelligence and resources. As things stand, the opposition is in a very weak financial position because of fatigue across well-wishers. To a large extend, the collapse of momentum and subsequent splits resulting in more fragmented groupings: PDP, RDZ, ZimPF and NAPP are a manifestation of financial drought across the opposition movement. Much less to do with ideological differences or contestations around the national agenda. In any case, none of the parties has placed the people’s agenda at the core of its actions since 2013. Much more, some parties will be left out, possibly to form their own ‘majestic’ alliance/coalition.

The MDC T has benefitted from the government grant and support from its MPs and councillors who have access to public funding; and this has allowed the party to subsist with some semblance of unity and purpose. But such funding has not been adequate to propel rural vote mobilisation and sustained party growth. As some analysts have pointed out, MDC T support has remained around the famous one million mark over the years! In any event, Morgan Tsvangirai has become an obvious leader of the ‘grand’ alliance, yet the ultimate coalition will be much weaker given the splits in MDC Team and ZimFirst parties and potential differences yet to emerge among the coalescing partners. The net effect may be a ‘grand’ loss as aging President Robert Mugabe has predicted.

Even more, in the absence of funding, the coalition faces a similar fate and prospect for electoral victory are lean, not least because on its own, Zanu PF has uninterrupted access to governmental infrastructural support and resources. How will a grand coalition reverse this funding challenge? Will it reverse pervasive exhaustion among well-wishers, or stop Zanu PF from accessing state resources to create an even playing field? I postulate that in the absence of adequate resources and effective intelligence on rigging options adopted by Zanu PF, the opposition whether combined or fragmented as has been the case to date, will pose no threat to the ruling party hegemony. The tragedy is in the opposition’s reliance on a popular and simplistic narrative of a grand coalition without analysing the qualitative political dynamics about the 2018 plebiscite. Hard questions must be asked and good answers must be proffered, now! 

Ideology: The Next Frontier of Politics

The major weakness of the grand coalition is the absence of a shared ideology. Perhaps it is time to think about Munyaradzi Gwisai’s intervention on 7 August 2013 when he observed: The (only) way forward for working people is to break from MDC and lay now the foundations for a new working people’s movement to continue the struggle against the regime, yet the painstaking realities of that option is that the politics on the ground still point to the currency of the MDC. Gwisai’s dreams of a movement that does not replicate MDC’s right-wing policies but positions itself left of Zanu PF on an anti-capitalist, democratic and internationalist basis. Such a movement has to be slowly and organically built from the struggles of the poor, anchored around the newly radicalizing trade unions and social movements. It cannot be built or decreed from boardrooms and it is also not short term but medium to long term, thus discounting 2018 and toying around with 2023 onwards. Ideological bankruptcy and financial drought will lead to more fractures within parties and across the coalition as Thokozani Khupe’s aspersions have begun to show. The will to power have trumped the will to transform within this simplistic and opportunistic coalition political tactic!

In any event, by emphasising the need for coalition partners to attend to the business of signing the MoUs at Tsvangirai's Highlands house at different times, the architecture of the agreements seems to be geared on ensuring the superiority of MT as leader rather than on the strength of the coalition itself, a strategy that feeds well into the machinations and manouevers of those around Tsvangirai. Such a strategy, is self-illusory as the numerical superiority of Tsvangirai in the opposition is undoubted and therefore a useless debate. The big question is building a coalition that can get the numbers that matter and addresses the qualitative aspects of the 2018 elections.

*Dr Toendepi Shonhe is an Associate Researcher at the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Research Institute  and did his PhD at University of KwaZulu Natal.

Thinking Beyond National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA)

Tamuka C Chirimambowa & Tinashe L Chimedza*

In Last week’s GravitasLite we argued that the political economy re-configuration that has happened since about 2000 will have a serious bearing on voting behaviour and patterns in the forthcoming 2018 elections in Zimbabwe. Our assertion is in no way discounting how the party-state network has entrenched itself using violence, state largesse, corruption and very pernicious methods of extracting benefits for its support network. This is not under dispute. In this article, we intend to pay closer attention to how the changing social structure will potentially influence voting behaviour and patterns. In other-words we want to reveal the social structural dynamics and argue that for those that are within the pro-democracy movement, they must pay close attention to these emergent classes and their changing accumulation patterns and its likely impacts on voting behaviour and patterns. These patterns will likely very much inform how political contestations will play out, simply put we are saying the analyses that informed the ‘politics of the MDC, NCA and ZCTU in the 1990s are now outdated and relying on them is not only slippery but will drive the pro-democracy movement into a cul de sac.  Firstly, the urban areas are now informalised, secondly the ‘working class’ has now depleted; thirdly the emergence of the new farmers is changing rural/agrarian class structure and fourthly the advent of the ‘New constitution’ to some extend checkmated the pro-democracy and shifted the terrain of democratisation when the ruling class acceded to its reform.

NERA & the ZANU PF Rigging Machinery

The pro-democracy movement, broadly defined, has coalesced around a very necessary agenda of dismantling and reforming the rigging machinery which the party-state has amassed around ZANU PF to ensure electoral victory for the ruling elites.  In developing the NERA coalition and mass mobilization the pro-democracy movement initiated a broad process of building social and political power to push for electoral reform. The party-state has ensured that the electoral related institutions like the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the Registrar General’s office are firmly controlled especially by the security-intelligence apparatchiks.

ZEC Chairperson: A Former ZANU PF Legislator

The NERA demands that laws guiding elections be realigned, that the ZEC be disbanded, that the staff linked to the intelligence be dismissed, that the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) be run by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and that no election should be run until these demands are met constitute the mobilizing platform for the opposition coalition. While very progressive, these demands are most unlikely to be unmet and ZANU PF has been very clear that they ‘they will not reform themselves out of power’. For instance, the party-state was able to weave through the demands of UNDP managing the procurement of the BVR vendor on the technicalities of state sovereignty, a ground that has legitimate arguments in international relations, despite that our realities point to the limitations of the doctrine of sovereignty.

While the first wave of NERA protests drew thousands, and built a necessary momentum more and more the protests are dwindling in numbers and at that rate very soon there will be very negligible numbers. The numbers are paltry when compared to the ZCTU, NCA, ZINASU and women’s movement protests which rocked the foundations of the ruling elite in the 1990s and the early 2000s. One critical factor which must not be missed is that the 1990s and 2000s boycotts, protests and stay-always were effective because they were built on the bedrock of working political power and the demands were ‘bread and butter’ issues. Effectively this agenda was concretely related to everyday material questions which easily galvanized support for the nascent pro-democracy movement. A vendor at Sakubva Bus Terminus in Mutare, a tuck-shop owner in Makokoba in Bulawayo, a cross border trader in Beitbridge, a small-scale miner in Chegutu and a new farmer in Centenary are unlikely to be moved to come to a NERA protest or identify with the agenda, not because NERA is irrelevant but because the NERA demands are not steeped in the everyday realities facing these social groups.

Instead a call to a meeting for farming inputs or housing stands will attract more attention. Effectively we are arguing here that the process of political and social mobilization is always rooted in the character of the actually existing social structure not what it ought to be or what it used to be. It is not that these social groups cannot be harnessed and organized but only that those that seek to relate to these classes must read and understand carefully just the way the ZCTU tapped into working class discontent of the 1990s.  The over-arching question becomes: what is the contemporary ‘national discontent’ and how does the pro-democracy forces intend to address them?

Jambanja Political Economy: New Farmers and the Accumulation Dynamics

We have pointed out previously that the ‘fast track land reform program’ has ushered into Zimbabwe the ‘jambanja political economy’ which is anchored around authoritarian public policy. A patently evident weakness of this jambanja political economy is that the party-state elites have parceled, amongst themselves, the bulk of the loot yet we must not be blind to the fact that beyond the self-aggrandising ruling elites there is a class of beneficiaries numbering possibly between 250,000 to 300,000 who now constitute a bedrock of the ‘new farming class’.

Tobacco Farmer

The most visible of these has been the 70,000 tobacco farmers who generated and shared close to US$700m in 2016/2017 and this is likely to be repeated in 2017/2018. Whereas previously this US$700m was largely shared amongst a few thousand white commercial farmers the bulk is now being split amongst the ‘new’ farmers. This introduces a new structural dynamic in terms of income in which the ‘farm worker’ and the ‘peasant farmer’ are now absorbed in an emerging class with a higher income but largely dependent on the party-state. Not that this nexus cannot be broken, the question is these new farmers are saddled with a complex set of problems which need to be responded to and they more likely to build an alliance with the political formation which responds to these questions.

An immediate criticism might be that these classes of new farmers are very ‘dirty’ meaning they are not pure in the sense of being clearly demarcated yet that is the point here: social classes never appear pure and without being imbricated in other classes (i.e. the new farmer is still married to subsistence economy and at the same time is seeking escape) yet make no mistake about it they are becoming aware of their power and marrying it to the party-state so as to extract as much benefit as possible (doesn’t every class depend on the state though? In the noise and dances of this rubble of a collapsed economy are emerging new realities, away from the urban ensemble, and those with keen political eyes must pay heed. The NERA, the new social movement and the ‘modern’ sector has limited power and this reality must be borne – the ‘new farmer’ wants to participate in the established markets for goods; the tobacco farmer wants a functional and cheaper credit system; the financiers want a functional ‘land market’; this is the reality, but the big question lies in how will those seeking for power in the 2018 elections provide solutions?

Urban Versus Rural Accumulation and Class Mobility Differentiations

Class mobility, that is to say the way social classes progress to a higher class, is largely dependent on the source of wealth accumulated. In the urban areas, which is 33% of Zimbabwe, accumulation is dependent on acquiring skills, getting into the labour force and or starting businesses. Consequently, the demands of the urban social classes are often very different and in certain ways in antagonism to the demands of the rural social classes. Urban areas, with their modern infrastructure, are a very small imposition on the national political economy and this is what Guy Mhone called an ‘enclave’. On the other hand, the social mobility of the ‘rural classes’ is tied to the land and ‘assets’ like cattle, goats, chickens and the yearly produce.

Cattle: Very Important Rural Asset

The skills demanded to achieve social mobility in the rural and farming areas are entirely different in the sense that a ‘former peasant’ with basic literacy skills can get an A1 farm and immediately start accumulating something almost impossible in the urban areas where college education is often the basis of access to formal employment and faster class mobility. With the urban political economy under pressure and almost non-existent class mobility has become almost impossible while the ‘former peasant’, who is illiterate and dependent on the party-state is actually building an asset base even on very insecure tenurial rights.  Professor Ian Scoones and his team of researchers has highlighted how these patterns of class mobility and consolidation are changing the rural/farming landscape. In simple words a transmogrification of immense proportion is happening right ‘before our very eyes’ and it can only be ignored by the politically blind.

 Make no mistake about it these new farmers have no interest whatsoever to remain subsistence farmers once they start accumulating. The logic of any social class is vertical mobility into some higher social strata. To get a first-hand experience of what we are arguing one has to visit the car sales, furniture shops and hardware wholesalers amongst many other merchants in Harare and witness the acquisitions of the new farmer from the proceeds of farming. That our friends, is the old dynamic of capital at work.  In essence, this means that once a social class emerges, it generates a new set of demands that may not be answered by yesterday’s policy solution. As the Shona proverb ‘Matakadya kare haanyaradzi mwana”. This is where the opportunity of the pro-democracy movement lies: in developing alternative public policies that responds to the new demands of these emergent social classes.

Political Mobilization, Ideology and National Question

Historically the liberation movements faced a very organized and very penetrated Rhodesian state which was supported by a garrisoned Rhodesian state and very recalcitrant white capitalist class. In response, the liberation movement developed a very relevant structure of organization rooted in the National Question-everyday lived realities of the actually existing social classes- which was land and the economy. While the process was very ‘bloody’ the lesson here is that political organization must be closely related to the social structure and built on the national grievances’ and often these were more pronounced in the rural areas than the urban areas. Strategically, it made sense for the liberation movement to target the rural areas and to its credit it came up with discreet mobilisation methods such as pungwes (overnight meetings) that manage to slip through Rhodesia’s Keep system and surveillance eye of the Special Branch.

The import of this is two-fold: firstly, there is no any impenetrable and unbreakable fortress of injustice no-matter how seemingly insurmountable it appears and secondly, that the prodemocracy movement has to rethink shifting its mobilisation strategies and tactics maybe from overt to covert. In this case, decentralized teams that will seek to these emergent social classes in smaller and discreet spaces such as house meetings are likely more to engage these emergent classes without exposing them to party-state’s surveillance eye. In simple terms, the situation demands the pro-democracy movement to undertake underground organising that emphasises political education on the ideology and values that will inform policy in the New Zimbabwe. The meetings are key for dialogue and marketing of alternative public policies that respond to the material and social conditions of citizens by the pro-democracy movement.

It is the Political Economy, Stupid!

Elections are not only about the technicalities of the voting process, but also consist of the socio-economic and political forces that inform and condition voting behaviour patterns. Therefore, whilst NERA has managed to highlight the deficiencies of the electoral system, it is in no way a political and economic programme that may inform or condition the social groups identified in this article to go vote and let alone for the opposition. To the Makorokoza how they will be able to continue or expand their gold scrounging activities; the cross border traders, how they will be able to bring their merchandise with less hassle from ZIMRA; the Commuter omnibus operators, how they will be protected from the marauding police on the roads and the new farmers, how they will have access to inputs, markets and cash after selling produce will most likely give compelling reasons to the electorate on why it is necessary to register and vote for change.

*Tamuka Charles Chirimambowa and Tinashe Lukas Chimedza are Co-editors of Gravitas.

The Forthcoming 2018 Elections: A Gaze from the Economic Lens

Dr Tinashe Nyamunda*

The Political Economy Dynamics and the Electoral Terrain

This article attempts to proffer insights on the possible influence of prevailing economic circumstances and how they may play out in political dynamics in the run-up to the 2018 elections. Zimbabwean politics has been intensely competitive since the formation of the MDC in 1999, giving the ruling ZANU PF the most effective challenge since independence. Nowhere, however, did the opposition come any closer to clinching electoral victory than in 2008 where they were eventually talked into sharing power after a violent build up to the run-off elections. The two parties will face each other again in 2018 and the question that remains is whether the efforts at ‘grand coalition’ building will address the deficiencies of the opposition. However, as 2018 draws near, it is becoming crystal clear that the structural constraints facing the economy is already setting the battlelines for political parties. Therefore, debates on ‘grand coalition’ building in one way or another will have to address the question of the economy in a manner that will resonate with the ordinary men. The political parties that will see beyond electoral fraud and malpractices in their strategies will most likely have more traction with voters.

From Stability, to Illiquidity

The period of the Government of National Unity (GNU) between 2009 and 2013 allowed the ruling party to rebuild and assemble an arsenal that allowed it to retain power in the 2013 elections. The fractures within the opposition political movement did little to help their cause and this has worsened their public image ever since. The electorate supported the opposition mainly on the back of an economic crisis that deepened since the 2000s. Although the main symptom of economic decline has largely been recalled in terms of hyperinflation, the crisis was layered with a collapse in public services, health provision, food shortages, record unemployment, and disinvestment, among many other factors. The short-lived reprieve that emerged with dollarisation and the GNU soon gave way to a new form of economic crisis. This time, the crisis is not associated with shortages of basic commodities or hyperinflation. On the contrary, there are plenty of commodities on the market accompanied by declining income levels and insufficient cash notes in circulation. But the big question is can the opposition movement seize this discontent to mount a strong challenge against the ruling party? The political scene of the early 2000s and that of today has transformed. Whereas it was really easy to argue that the MDC’s support was derived from mass discontent with the ZANU PF government’s record on the economy that cannot be easily sustained today. The same is just as true when arguing that ZANU PF will argue the rains-fed harvest was a consequence of command agriculture and therefore use it as a campaign strategy.

Queuing for Cash in Zimbabwe

True, these elements are very influential in informing the attitudes of the electorate towards which political party they support. It can be argued that as much as some have erroneously chosen to believe in a post-crisis Zimbabwe, others have mistakenly viewed it also as post-land reform. But this has ushered in new perspectives on approaching politics.

After All, it is Still the Economy

The political scene has become so fractured that understanding the political dynamics of today’s Zimbabwe must be much more nuanced. Since the GNU, the MDC has split into various factions, the most recent of which witnessed Tendai Biti forming his own political party as he was unhappy with the manner in which MDC -T had managed its campaign and handled the post-election situation. It remains to be seen how the recent reconciliation among the opposition splinter groups will work out. ZANU PF also experienced increased and more visible infighting resulting in the expulsion of many of its members including war veterans. Among the most prominent leaders to be expelled from party structures include the former Vice President Joice Mujuru who went on to form her own political party. With Mujuru eliminated from the succession race, the competing factions of Lacoste and G40 continue to compete for the top job in the event that a successor becomes necessary. So, the political scene has become much more fractured that a greater degree of nuance is required in order to follow and truly appreciate how the situation is unravelling.

The rallying point in Zimbabwean politics remains ordinary people’s economic fortunes; whether it is about indigenous resource ownership or formal economic revival and the creation of jobs. What remains to be seen is how the parties will rally their respective constituencies amidst different economic dynamics. Can the opposition movement continue to make a case for jobs and a formal economic revival in a setting were a culture of informality is becoming increasingly entrenched? Can the ruling party use the rhetoric of command agriculture which is being expanded to the whole economy when many of the masses whom they say they represent have been operating in disguised unemployment in an informal sector that is not very rewarding?

If anything, the various social movement that destabilised the capital city last year in the form of #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka led by Evan Mawarire and Promise Mkwananzi respectively demonstrated that at the heart of people’s grievances was a call for accountability from the ruling government. It was not necessarily an opposition movement although there were calls for the President to step down from the Mkwananzi camp. Although Mawarire and Mkwananzi momentarily appeared as respectively the Martin Luther King and Malcom X of Zimbabwean politics, their pressure groups were soon derailed by the state. This kind of left political parties out in the cold as the protests took on a character more inclined towards calling the government to account rather than asking it to vacate its seat of power. As the momentum of the hashtag movements slowed down, the space for political movements has gained pace especially as 2018 draws even closer. However, there is much disillusionment in the voting public. The many that I have engaged argue that the more the political changes that take place in terms of fractures in both parties, the more the political crisis remains the same.

Economic Discontent and Voting Behaviour

The question that begs is how will the current economic challenges inform electoral dynamics? It is likely that the various opposition parties that are currently working towards uniting against a common foe will again ride on economic discontent, this time in the form of the continuing illiquidity in the economy. They will argue that the government has no clue about how a modern economy is managed and they will offer a better alternative. But the question is that strategy enough especially in a highly informalised and reconfigured economy like ours, or it will remain just a Nostalgia of the ZCTU working class politics era of 1990s and early 2000s.

ZCTU in its Former Glory

On the contrary, ZANU PF is most likely, to refine and continue its politics of patronage. Where in the late 1990s, they used this tactic with war veterans, this time they will turn towards farmers, artisanal miners, cross-border traders, women and youth empowerment (various facilities have already been announced by the RBZ). Already, the RBZ has dangled a US$15 million facility for Cross-Border traders and Masvingo Resident Minister, Shuvai Mahofa decreed that only ZANU PF linked people should be employed or subcontracted on the dualisation of the Beitbridge -Chirundu highway.

Can a Collective Response Emerge?

The currency crisis was a major source of discontent in the 2008 elections which resulted in increased support for the MDC-T. In the upcoming elections, the RBZ has been keen to avoid the hyperinflation of yesteryear, but its drip-feed approach has seen the deepening of the directly opposite but equally debilitating problem; illiquidity. Not having enough cash to transact with is not better than having too much money with no value that no traders will accept. In the end, the situation is simply the flipping of a coin especially as the queues remain and people are deprived of cash. Where commodities were unavailable in 2008; they may be available in 2018 but increasingly expensive in an illiquid economy.

Basic Commodities in Shops as of 2017

Just as fractured as the political space is, the economy has also taken on characteristics in which people’s interests have also become fractured as individuals make do in circumstances where individuals worry about personal rather than national gain. Either some are smuggling goods for resale, or they are supporting protectionism to resuscitate local industry, or they hope to get their remittances in less stressful ways for example. Surviving has become more about the individual instead of the nation. Certainly, the discourse on economic nationalism, on jobs versus empowerment, of what government is and should do has certainly shifted in unpredictable ways.  

In a highly fractured political and economic space, action is more individualistic than collective. It is more highly nuanced; informed by personal rather than collective considerations. So, to conclude that people will vote against ZANU PF because of the cash crisis is inadequate as they may be beneficiaries of agriculture (land reform or command) or youth grants. In the same vein, to argue that those who benefit from ZANU PF patronage will vote for the ruling party may be misleading as they may be unhappy, not just about the cash crisis as it affects them, but also about their favoured candidates being kicked out of the party or their falling out of favour with the ruling elite as is the case with war veterans.

So, the current economic dynamics do not offer a sufficient guideline over who will take the next election. Even as the coalition of opposition political parties display their confidence that reforms will occur in time for the elections, I think this is highly unlikely. If ZANU PF retains control of the electoral machinery as it is likely to, the next election really is a dead rubber for them. We may see the opposition crying foul again if they do not seriously consider a more effective approach towards electoral reform and a fresh message for the electorate. If not, the more things change in Zimbabwean politics, the more they are likely to remain the same.    

*Dr Tinashe Nyamunda is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the International Studies Group, at the University of the Free-State.