13 · The power of propaganda explanation: perhaps Zimbabweans had imbibed the official messages pumped out by the ruling party over the airwaves and in mass meetings and, accordingly, blamed external and opposition forces rather than the government for their plight. 20 Additionally, the Afrobarometer posed the failed opposition explanation, or the view that the MDC had inspired so little confidence that the populace were returning to the Zanu PF fold. When the analysis was done, it strongly implicated the power of propaganda, which explained 55% of the total variance, whilst fear, which has been mentioned massively over the past three years in the press and human rights reports, only explained a mere 8% of the variance21. As the authors of the Afrobarometer report commented: “Our research shows that, of these two strategies of political control, persuasion works better than force. In explaining why the incumbent president retains the backing of half the electorate (which represents an increase in his popularity since 1999), we find that the key factor is popular trust in the government media. However crude, the government’s monopoly control of information has apparently induced numerous Zimbabweans – especially older, less educated elements in rural areas – to accept the political status quo. Apparently, ZANU-PF is succeeding in shoring up its base with propaganda about the liberation war and land seizures, while painting the opposition as a foreign-backed force.” If land was an important issue, it was only to Zanu PF and the Zimbabwe government, for, as in 1999, very few Zimbabweans mentioned land reform as an important priority issue. In 2004, only 1 percent of responses and 4 percent of respondents mentioned land as an issue. As the Afrobarometer comments again: To be sure, there is a strong, if romantic, attachment to land rights and rural lifestyles among Zimbabweans: for example, two-thirds (66 percent) favor an economic strategy in which “people go back to the land and provide mainly for their own needs as a community.” By the same token, however, an even higher proportion (76 percent) insists that, “the government must abide by the law in acquiring any property, including by paying the owner.” Our interpretation is that people in Zimbabwe want land reform, but they prefer that it be accomplished by legal, peaceful, and economically rational means. Whatever else can be said about the results of these polls, they do not suggest that Zimbabwe is in transition to democracy, or deepening its democracy. They rather support the notion that dominantpower politics is being maintained22, and that the elite within Zanu PF is able to maintain power irrespective of changes in regional context, international standards, and internal dissent. The Zanu PF government has exerted enormous pressure upon the population in order to retain political power, and the result seems to be that Zimbabweans are willing to acquiesce in order to minimize conflict or to maintain their advantages. What might be the position of Zimbabwean youth in this situation? Constructs of the current crisis 20 The reader is referred to the detailed report for the full explanation of the method and the findings. See Chikwana, A., Sithole, T., & Bratton, M. (2004), The Power of Propaganda: Public Opinion in Zimbabwe, 2004, Afrobarometer Report No. 42. 21 This is not to assert that fear is not a factor, nor that there have not been serious gross human rights violations taking place over the past 4 years. Indeed, the AU will in the near future consider a report emanating from the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights that strongly supports the views of Zimbabwean civics and human rights groups. It must also be considered that this finding – that fear was not a factor – was the finding of a poll that took place in a non-election year. 22 The term “dominant-power politics” is due to Thomas Carothers, and describes one of the ways in which the so-called “democratic transition” is being halted or avoided in many countries. According to Carothers, there are no grounds any longer for assuming that countries moving away from autocracy are necessarily moving towards liberal democracy. See Carothers, T (2002), The End of the Transition Paradigm, Journal of Democracy, 13:1, 5-21. IDASA: Zimbabwe at the Cross-Roads: Views of Zimbabwean citizens on democracy and transitional justice.