The wisdom of the crowd The results of this pre-election survey conducted one month before the July 30 election in Zimbabwe point toward a paradox. On one hand, when citizens were asked whom they intended to vote for in the presidential election, the result looked close. To repeat: If the election had been held in early July 2018, Chamisa would have secured 37% of the vote compared to 40% for Mnangagwa. Moreover, momentum was with the challenger, who transformed an 11-point disadvantage in early May into a 3-point gap by early July. The MDC’s electoral momentum could even be building further during the last few weeks of the campaign. Furthermore, if the votes of undeclared voters are included in the calculation, then scenarios exist for a prospective MDC victory even on the first round of presidential voting. On the other hand, scenarios also exist for the ZANU-PF to retain the presidency. If undeclared voters split in the same proportions as declared voters did in early July, then Mnangagwa could ride a 3-point edge to victory in the first round of the presidential vote on July 30. Alternatively, the ruling party might take further advantage of an unbalanced playing field by accelerating the distribution of patronage goods, stepping up its strong-arm tactics, or adding measures to manipulate the counting, collation, or announcement of results. After all, it is difficult to imagine that the civilian-military coalition that executed “the coup that was not a coup” in November 2017 would have taken such a high-risk action only to go on to lose an election. This latter scenario is apparently what Zimbabweans fear most. It is on full display in a key survey indicator that we call “the wisdom of the crowd.” Pollsters are discovering that, rather than trying to measure the behaviour of individual voters as we have done here, a more accurate prediction of election outcomes can be gleaned from estimates provided by the electorate as a whole. To this end, the survey asked all respondents, “Regardless of whether you will vote, or who you will vote for, which party’s or alliance’s candidate do you think will ultimately win the presidential election?” This alternative indicator produces a result much more favourable to the ZANU-PF; it shows the incumbent party ahead by 9 percentage points (ZANU-PF 43% vs. MDC 34%) (Figure 16). Figure 16: ‘Wisdom of the crowd’: Expected winner of presidential election | Zimbabwe | May-July 2018 100% 80% 60% 44% 43% 40% 29% 34% 23% 20% 3% 17% 5% 0% ZANU-PF MDC-T Election is too close Chamisa/Alliance to call Early May 2018 Copyright ©2018 Refused/Don't know Early July 2018 14