Electoral Commissions of SADC Countries (ECF)
2018 Briefing
Shastry Njeru
Research and Advocacy Unit
Historical and Political Contexts of Zimbabwe
1. Introduction & background
The 2018 elections will be the 11th since Independence in 1980. The consistency
and steadfast timing of these elections suggest the existence of forms of advanced
democracy enjoyed by a happy family who rely on clear rules of engagement. Yet
out of these seemingly choreographed processes, elections have been disputed. The
2002 and the 2008 elections were historically and extremely violent and many
people were killed, raped, tortured, displaced, etc. Property was destroyed and
billions worth of investments were lost. From 2002 Zimbabwe has become a pariah
state. The effects were felt in the economy as well as social life, in which the poor
and the ordinary were the major losers. It is arguable that the global political
agreement of 2009 between MDC formations and ZANU PF, and the government
of national unity that followed, rescued the country from the certainty of collapsing
into a failed state.
There are people who argue that, at the core of Zimbabwean politics, is a sustained
ability to trade off elections against bad governance.1 Elections result in serious
allegations of electoral fraud, violence, rape, murder and displacement of people;
all done to win the elections at all costs. While this has haunted the political
terrain, this has also created the image of the electoral system as designed to steal
elections on behalf of the incumbent. From the Registrar-General of Elections era
to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, elections in Zimbabwe are deeply
distrusted, both nationally and internationally.
This briefing paper reviews the political and historical context of the Zimbabwean
election with a view of determining the contribution of this past to the electoral
outcomes. We hypothesize that the 2018 electoral outcome will be a function of its
immediate past and the broader national historical context. It is also evident that
Zimbabwe, in common with other Southern African countries suffers under the
1
RAU (2012), Bucking the Trend: Africa, Zimbabwe, Demand for Democracy, and Elections. May 2012. Harare:
Research & Advocacy Unit.
1