Figure 6: Support for Democracy 90 80 77 74 It is evident, and in common with most findings for Afrobarometer surveys on Zimbabwe, most women support democracy but few like the Zimbabwean variety (Figure 5 below). This should also be read together with the differences found between rural and urban women reported elsewhere (RAU & MPOI. 2017). The rural women are much more supportive of democracy than the urban. 69 70 60 50 46 35 40 38 Support for democracy Extent of democracy 30 20 10 0 2012 2014 2017 There are no major differences in women as a group over the time period, but there is a substantial drop in views about the extent of democracy from 2012 to 2014. Was this a consequence of the results of the 2013 elections? Figure 7: Political participation Bearing in mind the general finding about the differences between rural and urban women, there is a steady decline in participating, at least in the sense of attending public meetings (Figure 6 above). The more active form of participation, working for a candidate or party, is hardly ever undertaken by women. But the overall decline in what might be termed “passive” participation, has declined significantly: 14% between 2012 and 2014, and 16% between 2012 and 2017. This suggests that women are viewing politics in a very negative light, as has been indicated by other research (RAU. 2016 (a); RAU. 2016 (b)). 70 60 59 50 45 attend a campaign meeting or rally 43 40 30 work for a candidate or party 20 10 7 6 7 2012 2014 2017 0 This suggests that women are viewing politics in a very negative light, as has been indicated by other research (RAU. 2016 (a); RAU. 2016 (b)). Finally, there is the matter of political trust. We chose eight state agents for this comparison, and, as can be seen in Figure 8, there were a number of changes over the five-year period. 11