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African Affairs, 1–17 doi: 10.1093/afraf/adz009
© The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal African Society, all rights
reserved. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com
BRIEFING
ZIMBABWE: THE COUP THAT NEVER WAS,
AND THE ELECTION THAT COULD HAVE
BEEN
NICOLE BEARDSWORTH,NIC CHEESEMAN AND SIMUKAI TINHU*
ON14 NOVEMBER 2017, the Zimbabwean military launched ‘Operation
Restore Legacy’in a bid to force President Robert Mugabe out of office
and facilitate a transfer of power to his former Vice President, Emmerson
Mnangagwa. The intervention was triggered by Mugabe’s move to side-
line senior military figures—including army chief Constantino Chiwenga
—and to sack one of their closest political allies, Mnangagwa, just over a
week earlier. The president justified this ‘night of the long knives’on the
basis that some of the most influential figures in the country had been
plotting to undermine his authority. However, ultimately Mugabe’s gam-
bit only served to weaken his hold on power.
In the three years that followed the 2014 ZANU-PF congress,
1
the race
to succeed Mugabe—who is now 95—had split the ruling party into two
rival factions: ‘Lacoste’, led by Mnangagwa and with strong links to the
military and key branches of the state; and the ‘G40’(from Generation
40) group, a less coherent ragbag band of younger politicians that
included several prominent Ministers and was associated with, but never
effectively led by, the president’s second wife, Grace.
2
For nearly four
decades until late 2017, Mugabe had consistently performed a clever bal-
ancing act, playing one faction offagainst the other and fostering internal
rivalries that kept all sides accountable only to the centre. However, when
he removed Mnangagwa, the president effectively sided with G40,
*Nicole Beardsworth is a postdoctoral researcher at the Interdisciplinary Global
Development Centre of the University of York (nicole.beardsworth@york.ac.uk), Nic
Cheeseman is the Professor of Democracy at the University of Birmingham (n.cheeseman@
bham.ac.uk), and Simukai Tinhu is a doctoral candidate in Politics at the University of
Edinburgh (Stinhu@yahoo.com).
1 On previous factions, see Oliver Nyambi, ‘Of weevils and Gamatox: Titles, names and
nicknames in ZANU PF succession politics’,African Identities 14, 1 (2016), pp. 59–73.
2 Chipo Dendere, ‘To understand the coup in Zimbabwe, you need to know more about
Grace Mugabe’,Washington Post, 15 November 2017, <https://www.washingtonpost.com/
news/monkey-cage/wp/2017/11/15/to-understand-the-coup-in-zimbabwe-you-need-to-know-
more-about-grace-mugabe/.>(11 January 2019).
1
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destabilizing the regime and thus setting in motion a course of action that
would ultimately lead to his own downfall.
In addition to being unpopular—there was little support for Grace
Mugabe’s political ambitions in the country
3
—the president’s belief that
Mnangagwa and Chiwenga could easily be politically neutralized signifi-
cantly underestimated their influence. Forced into a corner, this politico-
military axis moved swiftly to prevent the detention of Chiwenga, relocate
Mnangagwa to South Africa for his own safety, effectively place Mugabe
under house arrest and take control of the streets of Harare.
4
These
actions involved the considerable use of force. Tanks were deployed in
key locations, Mugabe was held against his will and those who resisted the
assertion of military control—or were expected to—were detained and
questioned, often brutally.
However, this part of the story of Zimbabwe’s political transition is
rarely told, because those who stage-managed the process went to great
lengths to create the impression that it was anything but a coup. Instead,
the world was presented with a cleverly and carefully curated piece of pol-
itical theatre. The central tenet of this performance was that both the mili-
tary intervention and the period of intense political negotiation that it gave
rise to were little more than a form of internal housekeeping.
5
Within this
narrative, Mugabe was said to have resigned of his own volition on 21
November after losing the backing of the party that he had led since inde-
pendence.
6
Similarly, Mnangagwa’s political ascension was curated so
that it appeared to have emerged from an orderly process within ZANU-
PF itself—and hence to represent a civilian, rather than a military, transfer
of power.
This performance, which involved allowing Mugabe to attend a public
event to maintain the charade that he was free to move about as he
pleased,
7
was necessary because Lacoste leaders planned to use economic
recovery as the foundation of its domestic legitimacy. Given Zimbabwe’s
perilous economic position, the success of this plan rested on securing
3 Sisonke Msimang, ‘The fall of Africa’s most hated first lady’,The New York Times,22
November 2017, <https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/22/opinion/sunday/grace-mugabe-
zimbabwe.html>(10 January 2019).
4 McDonald Dzirutwe, Joe Brock, and Ed Cropley, ‘“Treacherous shenanigans”–The
inside story of Mugabe’s downfall’,Reuters, 27 November 2019, <https://uk.reuters.com/
article/uk-zimbabwe-politics-mugabe-special-repo/treacherous-shenanigans-the-inside-story-
of-mugabes-downfall-idUKKBN1DQ0AB>(14 February 2019).
5 Piers Pigou, ‘Zimbabwe’s very peculiar coup’,International Crisis Group, 16 November
2017, <https://www.crisisgroup.org/africa/southern-africa/zimbabwe/zimbabwes-very-
peculiar-coup>(12 January 2019).
6BBC News,‘Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe resigns’, 21 November 2017, <https://www.
bbc.com/news/world-africa-42071488>(12 January 2019).
7 Jason Burke and Alex Maher, ‘Robert Mugabe makes first public appearance since mili-
tary takeover’,The Guardian, 17 November 2017, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/
2017/nov/17/zimbabwe-military-claims-progress-in-takeover-talks>(12 January 2019).
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significant international financial assistance and investment. In turn, this
depended on persuading regional bodies and the international community
to back—or at the very least acquiesce to—Mnangagwa’s leadership.
The greatest threat to this plan was that the transition would be labelled
a‘coup’. As a result of growing international norms against unconstitu-
tional transfers of power over the last 20 years, this would not only have
led to Zimbabwe being suspended from the African Union,
8
but could
also have undermined the prospects of international financial assistance
from the United States and, in turn, the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) and the World Bank. The importance of legitimating the transition
therefore motivated the new government’s actions at every turn. In this
sense, the central challenge for President Mnangagwa was similar to that
facing leaders in countries such as Cameroon, the Democratic Republic
of Congo, and Uganda: how to legitimize a regime with dubious demo-
cratic credentials.
Against this backdrop, Mnangagwa’s decision to hold an ‘early’election
can be seen to have been motivated by two factors. First, the need to legit-
imate his rule both domestically and internationally. If ZANU-PF could
win a competitive election, difficult questions about the ‘military-assisted
transition’would quickly fade.
9
Second, the president’s desire to establish
a strong mandate to assert his own authority over the ruling party and
government itself. From very early on in the life of the Mnangagwa
administration it was clear that the new political dispensation was beset by
civil-military tensions.
10
These related both to the distribution of political
power and economic resources. Unsurprisingly, senior military
figures expected to be rewarded for their role in removing Mugabe, and
one of Mnangagwa’sfirst acts was to appoint Chiwenga as Vice President.
Almost immediately, rumours began to swirl around Harare that the for-
mer army chief had demanded that a quota of positions within the party
and bureaucracy be reserved for military leaders. Such claims resonated
with Zimbabwean citizens in part because the last two decades have seen
a gradual process through which the state has been militarized.
11
Within
8 Joining the ranks of countries such as Mauritania (2005), Guinea (2008), Madagascar
(2009), Mali (2012) and Egypt (2013).
9 David Pilling, ‘A year in a word: Military-assisted transition’,Financial Times,26
December 2017, <https://www.ft.com/content/11fb6f04-e41b-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec>
(12 January 2019); ‘Zimbabwe’s“military-assisted transition”and prospects for recovery’,
International Crisis Group, 20 December 2017), <https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/
b134-zimbabwez-s-military-assisted-transition.pdf>(12 January 2019).
10 Owen Gagare, ‘Tensions between Mnangagwa and army commanders grow’,The
Zimbabwe Independent, 16 February 2018, <https://www.theindependent.co.zw/2018/02/16/
tensions-mnangagwa-army-commanders-grow/>(12 January 2019).
11 JoAnn McGregor, ‘The politics of disruption: War veterans and the local state In
Zimbabwe’,African Affairs 101, 402 (2002), pp. 9–37; Jocelyn Alexander, ‘Militarisation and
state institutions: “Professionals”and “soldiers”inside the Zimbabwe Prison Service’,
Journal of Southern African Studies 39, 4 (2013), pp. 807–28.
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this fluid and contested political environment, a commanding election vic-
tory promised to give the president a stronger mandate, and hence insu-
late him against further military intervention.
It initially looked as if Mnangagwa had managed the electoral process per-
fectly. The government allowed the opposition to campaign in rural areas,
generating a palpable sense that political space had been opened up But it
was also careful to retain tight control over the media, especially in rural
areas, and this, along with low-level intimidation of opposition supporters
meant that the government enjoyed considerable advantages of incumbency.
As a result, ZANU-PF achieved the ‘sweet-spot’of competitive-authoritarian
elections,
12
allowing just enough freedom to make them appear credible but
not enough to risk losing.
However, after voting had been completed and his first-round victory
announced, Mnangagwa’s perfect script began to fall apart. When oppos-
ition protestors took to the streets of Harare following allegations that the
presidential election result was being rigged in favour of ZANU-PF, they
met with a hardline military response that led to the death of seven people.
Then, in early 2019, protests against an increase in the price of fuel—
amidst a deteriorating economic situation—were brutally put down by the
security forces, while access to the internet was shut down, bringing back
memories of the Mugabe era. This raises a challenging question: how do
we explain the apparent inconsistency in the president’s approach?
This briefing seeks to shed light on how we should interpret recent events
in Zimbabwe by providing an overview of the key themes of the 2018 elec-
tions. In doing so, it highlights the rapidly shifting political playing field on
which the new president found himself. In particular, we show that in an
effort to legitimize his undemocratic rise to power, Mnangagwa positioned
himself as the ‘change’candidate and resorted to a mix of political theatre
and soft reforms to endear himself to both Zimbabweans and the inter-
national community. The ruling party ceded enough ground to make
claims of reform credible, while retaining sufficient control over the key
levers of power to ensure a favourable election result. However, the shock-
ing events of 1 August 2018 and early 2019 have cast a long shadow over
the new administration. The discrepancy between this violent crackdown
and the president’s strategy up to that point suggests that he was either dis-
ingenuous about his intentions or that he is not in full control of the state.
It is too early to make a definitive decision between these possibilities,
but both have significant implications for the future of Zimbabwean polit-
ics. If the former is true, the discrepancy between the president’sofficial
statements in favour of peace and dialogue and the human rights abuses
12 Steven Levitsky and Lucan Way. ‘The rise of competitive authoritarianism’,Journal of
Democracy 13, 2 (2002), pp. 51–65.
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committed by the security forces is best interpreted as a ‘good cop/bad
cop’routine, designed to deceive the world into thinking that Mnangagwa
is a ‘dove’, and signals that ZANU-PF has found a smarter way to sustain
authoritarian rule. If the latter possibility proves to be closer to the mark,
the civilian status of the Zimbabwean government is under threat—if it
has not already fallen—and the continued militarization of the state and
economy means that political and economic reforms are increasingly
unlikely. Either way, the prospects for democracy are bleak.
The electoral context: balancing participation and control
While winning a credible election made good political sense, it was easier
said than done because Mnangagwa was not an easy candidate to sell.
Having been a crucial cog in the Mugabe machine for over thirty years, he
was poorly placed to depict himself as the agent of change. From the inaug-
uration on, the Mnangagwa presidency was also dogged by allegations that
he had played a leading role in human rights abuses and election rigging
and demands for an apology for the Gukurahundi massacres of the early
1980s. He also lacked a personal electoral constituency and had repeatedly
lost elections for lesser positions. This placed the government in a difficult
position: a credible election was essential to provide a strong foundation for
the new regime, but a fully free and fair election risked defeat.
In many ways the election was a masterclass in how to revitalize and re-
legitimize a government without risking losing power. There were two ele-
ments to this. First, Mnangagwa effectively ran against his own political leg-
acy, denouncing the Mugabe regime and presenting himself as the ‘change’
candidate. As part of this process, he promised extensive reforms and global
re-engagement, frequently repeating the mantra that Zimbabwe was ‘open
for business’. Second, meaningful improvements in the electoral landscape
were introduced. Despite initial scepticism among the opposition, the cam-
paign was significantly more open than that of 2013. Opposition candidates
could hold rallies in rural areas that had previously been closed offto them
and fears that the government would move to take control of social media—
either by arresting critical bloggers or simply taking the internet down—failed
to materialize. At the same time, some of the democratic gains secured dur-
ing the political transition, when those in control of the process were encour-
aged to voice their criticism of the Mugabe regime, were maintained.
The notion that the political environment had changed in a profound way
was further supported by the role of the security forces. In many areas the
police, who were removed from the streets during the coup—much to the
joy of ordinary Zimbabweans, who see them as corrupt and ineffective—
adopted a much lower profile. The fact that the police road blocks that had
multiplied by the end of the Mugabe era disappeared created a greater sense
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of freedom of movement, because in addition to taking bribes they were
widely assumed to have been carrying out surveillance on behalf of the rul-
ing party.
The electoral framework also appeared to have improved. The
Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) presided over a new electoral
roll generated through the use of biometric technology and—in stark con-
trast to previous elections
13
—pledged to release it in electronic form to
both opposition parties and observer groups ahead of the polls. This pro-
mised to remove the ‘ghost voters’that had undermined the credibility of
the 2013 polls. Perhaps most significantly, Mnangagwa allowed the elec-
tions to be monitored by credible international bodies: by polling day,
representatives of many of the most robust international observation mis-
sions were in the county including the European Union, the Carter
Centre, and a joint delegation from the National Democratic Institute
and International Republican Institute (IRI) of the United States.
14
Regional monitors from the African Union and the Southern African
Development Community were also present.
However, like any effective competitive-authoritarian government,
ZANU-PF was careful not to make any changes that would risk losing
control of the political agenda. Thus, social media was not censored, but
the regime maintained tight control of radio—the dominant source of
information and news in rural areas. And while state newspapers were
careful to fulfil their legal requirement to cover the campaigns of all candi-
dates, this was done in a way that sustained the government’s hegemony.
On the one hand, there was no commitment to actually providing equal
coverage.
15
On the other hand, by dividing coverage of the opposition
between the 23 presidenial candidates, editors could deny Mnangagwa’s
most significant opponent media exposure.
Similarly, while the biometric voter registration process generated a
more robust electoral roll—with an estimated 2.1 million individuals (45
percent of those registered) who had appeared on the previous roll disap-
pearing
16
—serious questions remained.
17
Most notably, while domestic
monitors such as the Zimbabwe Election Support Network found
13 Jocelyn Alexander and Blessing-Miles Tendi, ‘A tale of two elections: Zimbabwe at the
polls in 2008’,Concerned Africa Scholars Bulletin, Winter 2008, <http://
concernedafricascholars.org/docs/acasbulletin80.pdf.>(12 January 2019).
14 Africa Confidential,‘The great observer gamble’, 9 August 2018, <https://www.africa-
confidential.com/article/id/12397/The_great_observer_gamble.>(9 January 2019).
15 MISA,‘2018 post election brief’, August 2018, <http://kubatana.net/wp-content/
uploads/2018/09/MISA-2018-Post-Election-Brief.pdf.>(10 January 2019)
16 This suggests that ghost voting played a central role in the manipulation of the 2013
elections.
17 Blessed Mhlanga, ‘“2 million voters removed from voters”roll’,NewsDay Zimbabwe,20
July 2018, <https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/07/2-million-voters-removed-from-voters-roll/.
>(12 January 2019).
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relatively few anomalies, a group of anonymous researchers known as
Team Pachedu identified over 120,000 suspect records that they argued
required further investigation. A second domestic observation body, the
Election Resource Centre acknowledged that being able to audit the
voters roll was an improvement on previous elections, but also com-
plained that it had been released too late for problems to be rectified and
raised concerns that the roll that was shared with them might not be the
one used on polling day.
These concerns were rooted in the fact that despite its nominal inde-
pendence, ZEC remained under tight government control. This was clear
legally, as the Justice Ministry retained the power to review and veto pol-
icies. But more importantly it was evident from the decisions that ZEC
made in the last weeks of the campaign. The more egregious of these
related to the design of the ballot paper, which according to the electoral
regulations should feature the names of the candidates in the presidential
election in a single column ordered alphabetically. This disadvantaged
President Mnangagwa, whose name should have come in the middle of
the list: political scientists believe that being first can increase the number
of votes that a candidate receives by a very small, but not insignificant,
amount.
18
In response, ZEC produced a ballot that violated both the rules
and common sense by employing two columns of unequal length so that
instead of appearing in the middle of a long column, Mnangagwa’s name
would appear first in the second of two columns.
ZEC made other decisions that also undermined its credibility. Most
obviously, with just ten days to go before the election it was revealed that
ZEC had changed the handbook used to train electoral officials—and
established election practice—by turning around the position of the poll-
ing booths so that voters would cast their ballots in full view of party
agents. This was justified on the basis that it would stop voters from tak-
ing pictures of their vote on their phones—an electoral offence—and
hence reduce the risk of vote buying. However, in a context in which past
elections have seen widespread violence and intimidation it was immedi-
ately interpreted as a last minute effort to ensure a Mnangagwa victory.
Although ZEC ultimately relented, reverting to the previous system that
protected the secrecy of the ballot, the incident further undermined its
reputation in opposition circles. The furore over the positioning of the
polling booths also diverted attention away from a more serious discussion
of other shortcomings in areas such as the counting and transmission of
the results.
18 Jonathan G.S. Koppell and Jennifer A. Steen, ‘The effects of ballot position on election
outcomes’,Journal of Politics 66, 1 (1004), pp. 267–281; Marc Meredith and Yuval Salant,
‘On the causes and consequences of ballot order effects’,Political Behavior 35, 1 (2013),
pp. 175–197.
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One reason that the idea of allowing voters to be overseen by party
agents generated such a strong outcry was that the campaign, though freer
than the last, saw a continuation of low-level intimidation, especially in
rural areas. In focus groups carried out by the NDI, citizens complained
of what they called ‘subtle violence’. What they meant by this was that
while there was limited physical violence, they were being coerced into
supporting the ruling party through other, less visible, means. This had
two main components. First, the ruling party collects a vast amount of
data on individuals, forcing people to provide private information in
return for food aid and basic services. During the election, figures aligned
to ZANU-PF also spread rumours that the biometric registration process
would empower them to track people and tell how they voted. Second, in
some areas traditional leaders, ZANU-PF candidates and their supporters
quietly reminded the electorate that the government had responded to the
strong vote for the opposition in 2008 with a wave of intense violence.
This is known locally as ‘shaking the matchbox’. Once you have burned
down someone’s house, you don’t need to do it again; just showing them
a matchbox is enough.
Taken together, these two processes created the sense that citizens were
constantly under surveillance and would be punished for voting the
‘wrong way’, undermining the confidence of many citizens in the open-
ness of the polls. A survey conducted by the independent Afrobarometer
group in May 2018 found that 31 percent of citizens worried that their
ballot was not secret, 41 percent believed that the security forces would
not accept an adverse result, and 40 percent feared that there would be
violence after the election.
19
President Mnangagwa’s supporters argued
that he was not to blame for this intimidation and that it simply repre-
sented the ‘muscle memory’of the old regime—which he was doing his
best to fix. It is difficult to evaluate this claim without access to ZANU-
PFs internal records, but such an interpretation is called into question by
the government’s disregard for both civil liberties and electoral rules dur-
ing the campaign. For example, teachers and students were forced to
attend Mnangagwa rallies and this continued despite fierce criticism from
both teacher and student unions and a High Court ruling that sought to
prohibit the practice. Whoever was responsible, it is clear that ‘subtle vio-
lence’conferred a considerable advantage on the ruling party.
Having instituted some positive electoral reforms, the ruling party thus
attempted a careful balancing act, exerting just enough control to ensure a
favourable outcome, while ceding just enough ground to make the polls
19 Michael Bratton and Eldred Masunungure, ‘AD223: Zimbabwe’s Presidential Race
Tightens One Month Ahead of July 30 Voting’,Afrobarometer, 20 July 2018, <http://
afrobarometer.org/publications/ad223-zimbabwes-presidential-race-tightens-one-month-ahead-
july-30-voting>(11 January 2019).
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appear to be a real improvement. In this way, the administration achieved
—if only for a short time—the ‘sweet spot’of electoral authoritarianism.
The campaign: external competition and internal disunity
President Mnangagwa’s campaign began in grand fashion, with massive
billboards that repeated his campaign promises to bring about universal
healthcare and decent jobs and deliver ‘free, fair and credible elections’.
However, although it was estimated early on that he was outspending his
rivals by 50:1, the president’sefforts appeared to lack the energy of his
opponents. In particular, his lack of charisma and flat speech delivery
were often criticized, and on 7 July, a video emerged showing soldiers
beating Zimbabweans for leaving a ZANU-PF rally in Bindura while
Mnangagwa was still speaking.
20
Deep divisions within the ruling party and the security sector did not
help. A grenade attack on 24 June at a ZANU-PF rally in Bulawayo was
officially said to have been an assassination attempt on the president from
a dissident group, but was widely interpreted on the ground to have been
the result of fractures within the government, and may have been a warn-
ing to the new president not to threaten the economic and political privi-
leges of the military figures who put him in power. Divisive party
primaries made things worse. Former provincial minister, Webster
Shamu, advised those who attended a rally in Mashonaland West to vote
for ZANU-PF at parliamentary level, but vote with their conscience in the
presidential polls.
21
This strategy—dubbed bhora musango—was used
effectively by dissident ruling party officials in 2008.
22
The MDC Alliance, the main opposition group, was also far from uni-
ted. The seven parties to the Alliance were the Movement for Democratic
Change-Tsvangirai (MDC-T)—the largest component—the Movement
for Democratic Change-Ncube (MDC-N) headed by Welshman Ncube,
the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) led by Tendai Biti, and smaller par-
ties Transform Zimbabwe (TZ), Zimbabwe People First (ZPF),
Zimbabwe African National Union-Ndonga (ZANU-N), and the Multi-
Racial Christian Democrats (MCD).
23
The coalition reunited fractious
20 Obey Manayiti and Simbarashe Sithole, ‘Mnangagwa rally ends in mayhem’,The
Standard, 8 July 2018, <https://www.thestandard.co.zw/2018/07/08/mnangagwa-rally-ends-
mayhem/>(11 January 2019).
21 Blessed Mhlanga, ‘Shamu preaches “bhora musango”’,NewsDay Zimbabwe, 18 July
2018, <https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/07/shamu-preaches-bhora-musango/>(11 January
2019).
22 Blessing-Miles Tendi, ‘Robert Mugabe’s 2013 presidential election campaign’,Journal
of Southern African Studies 39, 4 (2013), pp. 963–970.
23 MacDonald Dzirutwe, ‘Zimbabwe opposition reunites to challenge Mugabe’,Reuters,
5 August 2017, <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-zimbabwe-politics-idUSKBN1AL0IZ.>
(11 January 2019).
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former colleagues who had split from the main MDC-T in 2005 and 2014
in the wake of allegations of intra-party violence, intolerance of dissent
and ethnic tensions.
24
Despite having agreed to form a coalition, tensions
remained in the relationships between the principals to the alliance and
these manifested in occasional public spats over strategy and the absence
of key leaders from rallies.
The Alliance had been formed by the long-standing nemesis of
President Robert Mugabe, the former trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai.
But Tsvangirai’s death from colon cancer in Johannesburg in February
2018 left the coalition on shaky ground. Tensions emerged within the
Alliance’s largest party when 40-year old lawyer Nelson Chamisa seized
control,
25
outmanoeuvring the party’s Vice President Thokozani Khupe.
In turn, Chamisa’s power grab led to another split within the MDC-T,
with Khupe—who suffered misogynistic abuse and narrowly avoided
being burned alive by Chamisa supporters—successfully suing for the
right to use the party’s name and logo.
However, despite its financial and internal challenges, MDC Alliance
rallies were well attended and dynamic. A recently ordained pastor,
Chamisa frequently made use of religious symbolism on the campaign
trail. He dubbed his last rally in Masvingo as ‘The Last Supper’,asit
would be the final meeting ahead of the looming polls and, at his final ral-
ly in Harare, likened himself to Joshua who would deliver Zimbabwe to
‘Canaan’—echoing the words of Raila Odinga during the Kenyan election
of 2017.
26
With more than half of the population under 25 and 43.5 percent of
registered voters under 35, Chamisa, who is one of the youngest party lea-
ders in the country, also played on his youth and energy. During demon-
strations in Harare, he led the crowds through the streets and stopped
midway to do several push-ups, in a barely-veiled jab at the advanced age
of his opponent.
27
The MDC-A leader was also supported by a youth
activist movement dubbed #GenerationalConsensus. Significantly, while
many government figures and middle-class critics laughed at his
24 Brian Raftopoulos, ‘Reflections on opposition politics in Zimbabwe: The politics of the
Movement for Democratic Change’, in Karen Alexander and Brian Raftopolos (eds),
Reflections on democratic politics in Zimbabwe (Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, Cape
Town, 2006); BBC News,‘Zimbabwe’s Tsvangirai “expels”rival’, 29 April 2014, <http://
www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-27212025.>(11 January 2019).
25 Blessed Mhlanga, ‘Zimbabwe: Khupe, Chamisa feud turns nasty’,Zimbabwe Standard
(Harare), 18 March 2018, <https://allafrica.com/stories/201803180022.html>(10 January
2019); Richard Chidza, ‘Khupe slams door on Chamisa’,NewsDay Zimbabwe, 3 May 2018,
<https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/05/khupe-slams-door-on-chamisa/.>(10 January 2019).
26 Tatenda Chitagu, ‘Rains: Harbinger of good things for MDC Alliance?’,NewsDay
Zimbabwe, 27 July 2018, <https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/07/rains-harbinger-of-good-
things-for-mdc-alliance/.>(11 January 2019).
27 Nehanda TV,‘WATCH: Nelson Chamisa doing push ups’, 6 June 2018, <http://
nehandatv.com/2018/06/06/watch-nelson-chamisa-doing-push-ups/.>(11 January 2019).
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outlandish promises, such as a bullet train that would transport citizens
between the country’s two largest cities within 35 minutes, requiring
speeds upwards of 900 km/hour,
28
they proved popular with younger
voters. This, together with the more open campaign environment, meant
that Zimbabweans were increasingly willing to give him their support. In a
January 2017 Afrobarometer survey, just 16 percent of those surveyed
said that they would vote MDC, but a poll conducted just before the
2018 elections revealed that the party’s support had recovered to 39 per-
cent, within touching distance of the 42 percent received by ZANU-PF.
29
The final weeks of the campaign were complicated by the role played by
Robert Mugabe and the National Patriotic Front (NPF), a new party
formed by former members of the G40 who had been expelled from the
party following his removal. Throughout the campaign, there were
rumours that Chamisa was in talks with NPF leaders to form an ‘anti-
Mnangagwa’coalition. This alarmed many opposition supporters,
because it became clear that the NPF had close ties with Mugabe himself,
and so any deal threatened to undermine the MDC’s credibility.
Ultimately, it appears that the idea of a formal coalition was abandoned
after Chamisa refused to agree to demands that Grace Mugabe be
appointed his Vice President. Despite this, the two groups agreed to
cooperate, with some NPF leaders endorsing Chamisa and the two groups
discussed where to run (and not run) candidates to maximize their
chances of defeating ZANU-PF. Most surprising of all, Mugabe himself
endorsed Chamisa’s candidacy on the eve of the election in a rambling
hour-long missive.
30
ZANU-PF’s response was to suggest that a vote for
the MDC Alliance on 30 July would be a vote for the old regime. ‘The
choice is clear, you either vote for Mugabe under the guise of Chamisa or
you vote for a new Zimbabwe under my leadership and ZANU-PF’,
Mnangagwa claimed in a Facebook video.
28 Xolisani Ncube, ‘Chamisa grilled on BBC’s HardTalk’,NewsDay Zimbabwe, 12 May
2018, <https://www.newsday.co.zw/2018/05/chamisa-grilled-on-bbcs-hardtalk/>(10 January
2019); Retlaw Matatu Matorwa, ‘Of bullet trains and Chamisa’s 35-minute ride to
Bulawayo’,The Herald, 9 March 2018, <https://www.herald.co.zw/of-bullet-trains-and-
chamisas-35-minute-ride-to-bulawayo/>(10 January 2019); Shingai Nyoka, ‘The crusader
taking on Zimbabwe’s“crocodile”’,BBC News, 17 July 2018, <https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/
world-africa-44741062>(11 January 2019).
29 Bratton and Masunungure, ‘AD223: Zimbabwe’s Presidential Race Tightens One
Month Ahead of July 30 Voting’.
30 MacDonald Dzirutwe, ‘Zimbabwe’s Mugabe backs opposition on eve of election’,
Reuters, 29 July 2018, <https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-zimbabwe-election-mugabe/
zimbabwes-mugabe-backs-opposition-on-eve-of-election-idUKKBN1KJ0DS>(11 January
2019).
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The results: an election with no winners?
Voting day came and went and was seen—at the national level—to have
been relatively orderly and peaceful. But as the collating and reporting got
underway, political tensions began to rise. The Electoral Commission
tried to manage expectations by announcing parliamentary seats first.
ZANU-PF won 144 while the MDC-A managed just 64, giving the ruling
party a two-thirds majority in parliament. The delay to the presidential
declaration heightened fears of rigging and led to accusations that the
electoral commission had deliberately paused to make sure that
Mnangagwa would win in the first round. Thus, while the announcement
in the early hours of 3 August that the president had defeated Chamisa by
50.8 percent of the vote to 44.3 percent disappointed many, it did not
come as a massive surprise.
31
The other 21 candidates shared just
240,000 votes (4.9 percent), in an election that featured a record turnout
of 4.8 million voters, 85 percent of those registered.
Mnangagwa’s support had come from Zimbabwe’s rural Mashonaland,
Midlands and Masvingo provinces, while Chamisa’s was mainly concen-
trated in the urban Harare and Bulawayo provinces. Significantly, both
men won more votes than their predecessors, despite the cleaning of the
electoral roll: Mnangagwa added 350,000 votes to Mugabe’s 2013 total,
while Chamisa doubled Tsvangirai’s previous tally.
32
But despite this,
Mnangagwa’s performance left him vulnerable. While Mugabe won with a
commanding 61.09 percent of the vote in 2013, his successor only just
avoided the need for a second round run off. Moreover, Mnangagwa
received fewer votes as president than his party received for parliament,
suggesting that his candidacy hurt ZANU-PF in some areas.
For its part, the MDC Alliance could take comfort in the fact that it
won a majority of the vote in 4 of the country’s 10 provinces—
Manicaland, Matabeleland North, Harare, and Bulawayo. However, the
party performed significantly worse in the parliamentary polls, in part
because of the failure of the opposition to run a common set of candi-
dates. In twelve constituencies, the opposition collectively garnered more
than ZANU-PF, but they split the vote, in part due to confusion over
multiple ‘MDC’candidates on the ballot. Had this not happened, the
MDC Alliance would have claimed 36 percent of the seats to ZANU-PF’s
63 percent, denying the ruling party the majority necessary to unilaterally
change the constitution.
31 This figure was later revised down by ZEC to 50.67 percent during the court case that
followed the polls.
32 Brian Raftopolos, ‘Zimbabwe: The 2018 elections and their aftermath’,Solidarity Peace
Trust, 1 October 2018, <http://solidaritypeacetrust.org/download/Zimbabwe-2018-elections-
SPT-report-Oct1st-2018.pdf>(5 October 2018).
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But were the results reliable? A ‘sample based observation’(for histor-
ical reasons the term Parallel Vote Tabulation is not used) was carried out
by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network in conjunction with the
National Democratic Institute. The projected results based on this sample
were that Mnangagwa won with 50.7 percent of the vote, with Chamisa
on 45.8 percent, lending credibility to the official outcome. Moreover,
although the MDC Alliance alleged that the results had been manipulated
during the counting and tallying process, it struggled to prove this in its
electoral petition and the related court hearings, failing to produce suffi-
cient documentation of discrepancies to back up its claims.
However, the election was problematic in a number of other respects. A
civil society call centre that received thousands of messages from across
the country reported a remarkably high number of cases in which voters
were ordered to ask for assistance to vote from a known ZANU-PF mem-
ber or supporter.
33
While assisted voting provisions are designed to help
illiterate or blind voters, they can be manipulated to undermine the
secrecy of the ballot and ensure that votes are cast for the ruling party, as
appeared to be the case in 2013.
34
Significantly, many of those affected
had received threats in the days before the polls, reflecting the continued
use of subtle violence. Other problems were also identified. In opposition-
sympathetic urban areas, there were reports of long, snaking queues and
slow electoral agents. In Mbare, a high-density suburb outside Harare,
some stations were only processing 10 voters per hour, leading to oppos-
ition complaints that this was a deliberate strategy to reduce turnout in
Chamisa’s heartlands.
As a result, while the African Union and Southern African Development
Community observer missions released positive statements, the European
Union Election Observation Mission and International Republican
Institute/National Democratic Institute were much more critical. Though
they noted an ‘improved political climate’and the peaceful and generally
orderly process observed on election day, they denounced the use of state
resources, coercion, intimidation, media bias, partisan behaviour of trad-
itional leaders and vote-buying.
35
The observer missions also commented
33 We the People of Zimbabwe, ‘Violence around election day: Reports from the We the
People of Zimbabwe call centre, July 28—August 3, 2018’,We the People of Zimbabwe,
3 August 2018, <http://kubatana.net/2018/08/03/violence-around-election-day-reports-
people-zimbabwe-call-centre-july-28-august-3-2018/>(11 January 2019).
34 Research and Advocacy Unit, ‘Syncopated Numbers: Arithmetic discord and
Zimbabwe’s 2013 “harmonised”election’,Research and Advocacy Unit, March 2014, <http://
researchandadvocacyunit.org/system/files/Syncopated%20Numbers%20-%20Arithmetic%
20Discord%20and%20Zimbabwe%E2%80%99s%202013%20%E2%80%9CHarmonised%
E2%80%9D%20Election.pdf>(15 March 2017).
35 ZIEOM, ‘Preliminary statement’(Joint IRI and NDI Observer Mission, Harare,
1 August 2018); European Union Election Observation Mission to Zimbabwe, ‘Preliminary
statement’(European Union Election Observation Mission, Harare, 1 August 2018).
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on the problem of assisted voters but could not discuss the total number
votes cast in this way because, although it records this information, ZEC
has so far failed to release it. Given these limitations, and the fact that
Mnangagwa only secured an absolute majority by just 38,780 votes,
36
it
seems clear that the election would have gone to a second round, had the
political playing field been level.
The aftermath: political violence and economic decline
Perceptions of the election—and its legacy for Zimbabwe—were changed
irrevocably on 1 August, when a protest by MDC supporters against
alleged electoral manipulation was violently repressed by the military,
with seven people killed and dozens beaten. In the days that followed, the
suburbs surrounding Harare saw a covert crackdown with reports of sol-
diers beating civilians, demanding to know the names and addresses of
opposition polling-agents, voters and activists.
37
Meanwhile, prominent
MDC leader Tendai Biti unsuccessfully sought sanctuary in Zambia in a
bid to escape arrest on trumped up charges of inciting violence.
38
The
human rights violations led to critical media coverage and international
condemnation around the world, summed up by the first line of an
Economist article on the elections: ‘So much for a fresh start’.
39
Just a few months later, in January 2019, the government reprised this
hardline stance by launching a fresh spate of repression in response to fur-
ther public protests.
40
In this instance, the unrest followed a state-
sanctioned increase in the price of fuel of more than 150 percent, which
encouraged residents of Harare and Bulawayo to back trade union calls
for a three day ‘national shutdown’from 14 January. Some protesters
resorted to roadblocks and intimidation in high-density areas in Harare
and Bulawayo to reinforce the strike.
The violence deployed by the administration in response to the protests
and roadblocks was considerably more widespread and severe than in
August and extended to the beating and detention of a wide range of civil
society and opposition figures including many who were not responsible
36 This was revised down to 30,873 votes, during the court process.
37 Dozens of reports surfaced of MDC polling agents being tracked down, beaten and tor-
tured and forced to sign new V11s (polling results declaration forms).
38 BBC News,‘Tendai Biti: Zambia denies Zimbabwe politician asylum’, 8 August 2018,
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-45112953>(11 January 2019).
39 The Economist,‘Zimbabwe’s elections turn violent’, 2 August 2018, <https://www.
economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2018/08/02/zimbabwes-elections-turn-violent>
(11 January 2019).
40 Jason Burke, ‘Zimbabwe activists on run as protests crackdown raises spectre of
Mugabe’,The Guardian, 18 January 2019, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/
18/zimbabwe-activists-protests-crackdown-spectre-of-mugabe-era>(19 January 2019).
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for the attempted shutdown.
41
Over the course of more than two weeks,
at least seventeen people were killed by security forces, hundreds were
beaten and nearly a thousand more were arrested—including opposition
MPs, activists and trade union and civic leaders.
42
In an unprecedented
move, the Internet was shut down for most of the three days of protest,
apparently to undermine efforts by organizers to coordinate protests and
to prevent images of these atrocities from seeping out.
43
Despite this,
these events triggered a wave of international condemnation and led the
UK’s minister for Africa Harriet Baldwin to express ‘deep concern’at
Zimbabwe’s‘disproportionate response to the protests’.
44
The fact that the August and January crackdowns were at odds with
Mnangagwa’s previous statements has generated two very different inter-
pretations about their implications. The first is that the president was
never sincere and as soon as it was clear that his legitimacy would not be
boosted by an overwhelming victory he reverted to his authoritarian
instincts. The second is that Mnangagwa does not have full control of the
state and its security apparatus, and that the growing militarization of his
regime that was facilitated by the central role that Chiwenga played in his
rise to power has enabled hardliners to take control over key aspects of
government policy.
These rival interpretations have very different implications for the
future of Zimbabwe, but neither of them leads to an optimistic conclu-
sion. If Mnangagwa was playing a game all along, his continued efforts to
talk the language of human rights is a cynical ploy to evade international
condemnation. On this account, Mnangagwa’s appearances at events like
Davos –while the security forces brutalize protestors in the streets–are lit-
tle more than a divisionary tactic. Should this be true, Zimbabwe has sim-
ply replaced one wily autocrat with another.
The prospects for reform look little better if Mnangagwa is not in full
control of the state. This would imply that Zimbabwe risks losing its civil-
ian status, and is effectively becoming a military regime in disguise. The
strongest evidence in favour of this argument is the number of divisions
41 Brian Raftopolos, ‘Resurgent authoritarianism: The politics of the January 2019 vio-
lence in Zimbabwe’, Solidarity Peace Trust, 20 February 2019, <http://solidaritypeacetrust.
org/download/report-files/Resurgent-Authoritarianism-The-Politics-of-the-January-2019-
Violence-in-Zimbabwe.pdf>(2 March 2019).
42 The Guardian,‘Zimbabwe: Activist pastor arrested for “inciting violence”video’,
16 January 2017, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2019/jan/16/zimbabwe-activist-
pastor-evan-mawarire-arrested-for-inciting-violence-video>(19 January 2019).
43 Amnesty International,‘“Open for business”, closed for dissent: Crackdown in
Zimbabwe during the national stay-away 14–16 January 2019’, 8 February 2019, <https://
www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/AFR4698242019ENGLISH.pdf>(2 March 2019).
44 The New York Times,‘Britain deeply concerned at Zimbabwe unrest: summons ambas-
sador’, 18 January 2019, <https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2019/01/17/world/africa/
17reuters-zimbabwe-politics-britain.html>(19 January 2019).
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that exist at the heart of the government. The tension between
Mnangagwa and Chiwenga is said to be rooted in the fact that the Vice
President disapproves of Mnangagwa’s courting of Western states, and is
keen to take over the presidency sooner rather than later—raising the
question of whether Mnangagwa is under pressure to stand down after
one term in office. This reflects a broader tension between civilian and
military figures, both within ZANU-PF and within the state itself. If
Chiwenga is really the one calling the shots, the big story of the last year is
not the ‘military-assisted transition’against Mugabe, but the much slower
and ongoing extension of military power behind the scenes. However, it is
important to note that the security services also appear to be deeply
internally divided, with factional divides existing within and between units
of the police, intelligence services and military, and thus do not operate
with a common objective in mind. In turn, this makes their behaviour
hard to predict.
At the time of going to press, it is looking increasingly likely that there is
actually an element of truth to both narratives—i.e. that Mnangagwa is
playing ‘good cop/bad cop’and lacks full control over the government. On
the one hand, while the army has at times operated independently from
civilian authorities, Mnangagwa has a complex relationship with the institu-
tion that allows him considerable leverage. It is now clear, for example, that
despite initial rumours to the contrary, it was the president himself who
ordered soldiers on to the streets of Harare in 2018 and not army leaders
operating under their own steam.
45
This suggests that Mnangagwa is more
powerful than he is sometimes depicted as being by those who see him as a
frustrated reformer trapped in a restrictive system.
On the other hand, there is strong evidence to suggest that the divisions
within the state and ruling party mean that the president must contend
with a number of powerful veto players when making government pol-
icy.
46
While it is true that Mnangagwa has at times asserted his authority
over military leaders, removing some of the vice president’s allies from the
cabinet, most notably Supa Mandiwanzira and Obert Mpofu, many
believe that military pressure forced him to retain the services of former
officers such as S.B. Moyo and Perence Shiri. Such persistent factionalism
means that internal cohesion is likely to prove elusive, and further rup-
tures –including a move to depose Mnangagwa himself –cannot be ruled
out.
45 Eye Witness News,‘Mnangagwa authorised deployment of soldiers, former minister tells
inquiry’, 28 November 2018, <https://ewn.co.za/2018/11/28/mnangagwa-authorised-
deployment-of-soldiers-former-zim-minister-tells-inquiry>(19 January 2019).
46 For a discussion of veto players in the Zimbabwean context, see Nic Cheeseman and
Miles Tendi, ‘Power-sharing in comparative perspective: the dynamics of “unity govern-
ment”in Kenya and Zimbabwe’,Journal of Modern African Studies 48, 2 (2010),
pp. 203–229.
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Conclusion: the prospects for reform
Whichever interpretation of recent developments proves to be correct, the
militarization of Zimbabwean politics is a major cause for concern.
Although the creeping influence of the military within both the party and
the state is not a new phenomenon,
47
the period since the 2017 coup
appears to have seen the intensification of this process. In addition to
increasing the risk of the kind of violent repression witnessed in January
2019, the greater control of military leaders over civilian processes has
important implications for the economy. Perhaps most significantly, since
his appointment as Vice President, Chiwenga and other military
figures have become further enmeshed in key areas of economic activity,
having already established a major role in agriculture, extractives and
state-owned enterprises.
48
Military figures are unlikely to be willing to
lose these benefits, which in turn undermines the prospect of democratic
reforms that would weaken the administration’s hold on power, and eco-
nomic reforms that would introduce a genuinely competitive and open
economy. As a result, challenging socio-economic reforms are likely to be
a second-order priority, as Mnangagwa prioritizes building a stronger
power base in preparation for his campaign for a second term in 2023.
The negative consequences of these constraints are becoming increas-
ingly clear. From the point of view of early 2019, the currency crisis has
deepened, businesses are closing, and fuel and commodities are in short
supply. The government appears to have no coherent strategy to end the
deepening economic decline, while the international community is
increasingly unsure of how best to engage, and little investment has been
forthcoming. In the absence of effective leadership and a new agenda,
there is growing evidence that ZANU-PF is reverting to type. Recent
attempts by senior government leaders to delegitimize popular protests as
a devious plot devised by foreign powers and carried out by civil society
groups recycle old tropes to such an extent that it might even have been
humorous if they had not been accompanied by the arrest of prominent
figures on trumped up charges of ‘trying to topple Mnangagwa’s govern-
ment’.
49
Thus, despite Mugabe’s departure, Zimbabwe’s‘new dispensa-
tion’looks much like the old.
47 Jocelyn Alexander and JoAnn McGregor, ‘Introduction: Politics, patronage and vio-
lence in Zimbabwe’,Journal of Southern African Studies 39, 4 (2013), pp. 749–763.
48 Gorden Moyo, ‘The curse of military commercialism in state enterprises and parastatals
in Zimbabwe’,Journal of Southern African Studies 42, 2 (2016), pp. 351–364.
49 News24,‘Zimbabwean activist Rashid Mahiya charged for trying to topple
Mnangagwa’s govt’, 26 February 2019, <https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/
zimbabwean-activist-rashid-mahiya-charged-for-trying-to-topple-mnangagwas-govt-20190226>
(28 February 2019).
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