Provincial elections held by Zimbabwe’s ruling socialist Zanu-PF party dissolved into chaos on Tuesday with widespread allegations of vote-rigging, plus confusing election rules that reduced voters to helpless frustration.
Zanu-PF, whose formal name is Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, has controlled Zimbabwe since it gained independence from Great Britain in 1980. The party’s stranglehold on power was shaken by the fall of dictator Robert Mugabe in 2017 after 37 years of iron-fisted rule, but under his successor and onetime lieutenant Emmerson Mnangagwa, Zanu-PF was able to withstand a challenge from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Zanu-PF’s provincial elections this week, essentially the party primary, are therefore a strong indicator of how next year’s parliamentary elections and the 2023 presidential election will play out. Factional conflicts within Zanu-PF tend to have a greater effect on election outcomes than whatever the opposition is doing.
In fact, the MDC and its leader Nelson Chamisa accused Zanu-PF of crippling it by encouraging and manipulating a breakaway faction called MDC-T, dividing the opposition and giving Mnangagwa and his party an easy road to retaining power.
Chamisa also complained he and other opposition leaders have been harassed by police officers acting like “Zanu-PF commissars.” Last week, a truckload of police officers broke up a Christmas party Chamisa holds every year for the elderly and disabled and seized bundles of groceries meant as donations to the poor.
The opposition accused police of finding a pretext to break up every rally and gathering they hold, while Zanu-PF holds huge coronavirus super-spreader rallies across the country.
Police raids on opposition headquarters have been a regular feature of Zimbabwean politics since it gained independence, but Zanu-PF seems especially heavy-handed and paranoid this time around because of a rumored split between Mnangagwa and his top deputy, Constantino Chiwenga.
Party-watchers note the police are harassing Chiwenga supporters within Zanu-PF as well as opposition candidates, as speculation grows that Chiwenga will challenge Mnangagwa in 2023 and split the ruling party in half.
Another growing headache for Mnangagwa is the possible return of Zanu-PF power player Saviour Kasukuwere, who departed for South Africa after the fall of Mugabe but appears poised to re-enter Zimbabwean politics. Zanu-PF officials loyal to Mnangagwa have threatened to suspend party members agitating for Kasukuwere’s return by posting images on social media of him standing beside Mugabe, who died in September 2019.
Zimbabwe’s Indigenisation minister Saviour Kasukuwere addresses on January 11, 2013. (JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images)
Against that background of party intrigue, Tuesday’s Zanu-PF provincial elections were marred by allegations of ballot-stealing, deliberate shortages of ballots at polling stations, confusing rules seemingly intended to drive supporters of certain candidates away, and violent clashes at polling stations.
According to New Zimbabwe News, agents of one candidate were spotted fleeing a polling station with stacks of ballot papers in hand. At another station, a “visibly irritated” election official gave up on trying to interpret the convoluted election rules and predicted a “rerun” would probably be ordered by national authorities.
“Delayed delivery of ballot papers to polling stations was reported in most parts of the country with some members alleging the move was deliberately employed to frustrate rivals’ supporters,” New Zimbabwe reported.
“Scenes of violence” were observed by New Zimbabwe correspondents in the Mashonaland West district as some candidates discovered their names had been completely omitted from the ballots.
Many of the reported irregularities came from districts where Mnangagwa and Chiwenga directly contended with each other on the ballot, or fought for control of Zanu-PF through proxies. Some of the most blatant ballot shenanigans occurred in Mashonaland Central, where provincial chairman and Chiwenga supporter Kazembe Kazembe fired a shot across Mnangagwa’s bow by snubbing him at a campaign event in early December.