“This is total war. We will have a central command centre. This is war, it is not a
game. You are all soldiers of ZANU PF for the people. When we come to your
province we must see you are ready. When the time comes to fire the bullet, the
ballot, the trajectory of the gun must be true.”3
Ahead of the 2000 elections, the rejection of the government sponsored constitutional
proposals in a referendum gave a warning to ZANU PF that it had lost popular support. Its
response was to unleash upon the opposition a large scale campaign of violence and
intimidation. Because it then was able to emerge victorious in this and subsequent elections,
albeit by using intimidation and electoral manipulation, ZANU PF declared these results to be
indicative of its popular support.
In one of his last rallies before the March 2008 elections, President Mugabe was reported to
have told supporters in Chiredzi, that he would not concede defeat even if he lost
the
election and would “go to the bush and use guns” to stop the opposition from taking over the
administration of his government. He went on to say,
“We used guns to liberate ourselves from the Rhodesian colonial government 28
years ago and we are going to use the same guns to stop the MDC or Makoni.”
3. March 2008 elections
The March 2008 elections took place at a time when economic conditions for ordinary people
were quite appalling. Nonetheless ZANU PF still believed it commanded considerable popular
support and did not think it necessary to engage in widespread violent intimidation to force
people to vote for it.
Only weeks before the March 2008 elections, however, the heads of the army, the police and
the prison service, all of whom participated in the liberation struggle, publicly proclaimed that
they would not serve any President other than President Mugabe and instructed those under
their command to vote for the ruling party.
The results of the March 2008 election came as a complete shock to the ruling party. It was
not prepared to accept the loss and has instead sought to reverse it. It has demanded a
recount of the results in a number of constituency elections. It has also demanded a recount
3
See Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (2007), Their Words Condemn Them: The Language of Violence,
Intolerance and Despotism in Zimbabwe, May 2007, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM.
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