and loss of leadership to the party political sphere. As the strength of Tsvangirai’s party weakened in this area, ZANU PF escalated their interventions with urbanites at local government level. As McGregor observes, ZANU PF has relied on ‘coercive measures and irregular enticements to maintain the local state as a system of patronage when challenged under the Inclusive Government.’ Moreover the privatization and deregulation of local authority controls ‘provided opportunities and resources to fuel ZANU PF accumulation and patronage through party linked business.’58 With little to offer in terms of new employment opportunities ZANU PF, building on the blockages they had built to the few attempts made by the MDC to improve the extremely poor state of municipal government inherited by the Inclusive Government, made a populist decision to cancel all outstanding rate payments a week before the 2013 elections. As one of its election posters read: COUNCIL BILLS CANCELLED. ZANU PF says yes MDC says no. Dollarisation led to unfairly high outstanding bills, ZANU PF understands that people are struggling and that’s why we have cleared your bills.59 Once again, ZANU PF combined its formal affiliation to stabilisation measures under the inclusive government with populist electoral interventions, with little regard for the longer‐term implications of such measures. The cumulative messaging of these Zanu PF policy interventions was brought together in the party’s election manifesto which was entitled ‘Indigenise, Empower, Develop and create Employment.’ The key themes of this manifesto included ZANU PF’s monopoly claim to have: delivered liberation from colonial rule and carried out the ‘Third Chimurenga” of land re‐distribution; provided the guardianship of national sovereignty and identity; guaranteed freedom, democracy, non‐ violence and peace; embarked on a new programme of indigenisation to increase popular ownership of national resources and provide growth and employment.60 As Mugabe looked to what he termed the ‘quick yielding sector of mining and agriculture,’ it was clear that ZANU PF was constructing its social base both for the elections and for its future development vision, as one built around reconstructed agricultural and mining sectors, combined with the informal sector activities of the urban areas. In addition to the party’s rural supporters and those in the informal mining sector, this vision also found some resonance amongst the 47% youth unemployment in the urban areas61 particularly, as we discuss below, in light of the disappointing performance of the MDCs in the Inclusive Government.                                                              58 J.McGregor, ‘Patronage, “power sharing” and the policies of urban control in Zimbabwe,’ Journal of Southern African Studies, (forthcoming 2013.) 59 Daily News 30 July 2013. 60 Zanu PF Election Manifesto: Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment. 2013. 61 Labour Force Survey op cit, p 70.   20