5.7 Election mode An interesting notion that emerged from the discussions was that Zimbabwe is perpetually in election mode and the citizenry does not concentrate their efforts on substantive issues that need attention such as roads, the water crisis and drugs and medication in public health facilities.5 Rather, the citizenry is always preoccupied with arguments over which political party has the best ideology, which one should be the best one to govern the country, which candidate should be voted for in local council elections. There are always elections going on at different times, almost forcing people to focus on elections. Furthermore, the elections are almost always characterised by violence and intimidation of voters and this makes people to perpetually live in fear hence the risk aversion. 5.8 Class and organisation The growth of the informal sector is the evidence of how the educated have struggled unsuccessfully to secure employment and eke out a living for their families and households. The MDC became a formidable opposition because of the organization of Trade Unions. The government has made deliberately ensured that most of the unemployed youth are not unionised despite the high numbers of informal traders. The disruption of citizens to organise themselves to take effective class action against the government serves to dissuade citizens from expressing themselves. When citizens look at the struggles of protests led by unions such as vendors’ unions, the ordinary citizens are discouraged from expressing their views. Some respondents explained that the title of the report “Are Zimbabweans revolting?” talks to the issue of agency and citizen agency is a critical part of class organization so the title is very appropriate and enables the reader and other users of the report to also try to engage with issues of how the government attempts to keep them citizens disorganized by counter organizing through vote buying and other divisive patron-client practices. The different social movements that rose to prominence in 2016 are continuously being charged with breaking the law, their leaders being arrested and released and the groups are now disorganised. The main opposition’s decision to boycott elections has disillusioned supporters. Thus the fluctuations in risk taking between 2005 to 2009 and 2012 to 2014 are possibly because of the fluctuating strength of opposition political parties and other citizen pressure groups 5.9 The silence of the church Other participants attributed the risk aversion trends to the silence of the church and its position not to speak out against the prevailing maladministration by the government. According to this interpretation of the role of the church in governance the church was at the forefront of dismantling the Smith regime. However, currently the church is largely quiet and is not exercising its authority. Lately Zimbabwe has seen the emergence of new highly churches that are focus on “prosperity gospel” and “miracles”. These new churches are highly prescriptive of the behaviour expected from members. With Zimbabwe being a highly religious country with so many people who look up to the church answers, the church’ hibernation is a cause for fear for the adherents. This contributes to the adherents of such churches withdrawing from participating in political and governance issues which are not 5 It should be noted here that, through all the AB surveys since 1999, the delivery of public goods and services has been the major concern of respondents. See, for example, RAU (2016), Conflict or Collapse? Zimbabwe in 2016. Report prepared by the Research & Advocacy Unit (RAU). May 2016. Harare: Research and Advocacy Unit. 19