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Michael Mhlanga
It’s possibly safe to argue that Zimbabwe has been shaped by three stages. The first being 1980 when the country was liberated from white minority rule and savoured the euphoria of black liberty. The second is how life; economic and political, was modelled under Robert Mugabe for two decades, the third can be characterised to have begun in November 2017 and amplified by the July 31 elections of 2018. All these stages are meaningful in defining the political economy of the country, but importantly, elections are the defining process of shaping livelihoods.
In all three stages, the (in)action of opposition has shaped the life of an ordinary Zimbabwean from representation, maintaining checks and balances in a democracy, calls for sanctions, economic sabotages and demonstrations. I emphasise (in)action because after last week’s subject on the predictors of winning elections, there are murmurs in the streets that after a streak of losses in by-elections and the impending Mangwe, 7 September by-elections, with projections of not winning, some quarters in opposition are calling for boycotts — the same ingredient that led to the infamous 2005 split.
I find it important to have a discussion on the consequences of electoral boycotts by making a few, yet monumental references of where and how electoral boycotts failed and yielded worse for developing political states.
Although threatened boycotts in high-profile elections can pay dividends, much evidence indicates that actual boycotts almost always end in failure. In addition to removing the boycotting party from any governmental role, they also result in one or more of three major negative outcomes: marginalisation of the boycotting group, further empowerment of the incumbent and their party, and unexpected negative changes to election dynamics.
There is minimal evidence of successes of electoral boycotts, but they should be evaluated based on context of their success. The best example of this dynamic was the landmark 1994 elections in South Africa, the first of the post-apartheid era. While it was clear that Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress (ANC) would gain a decisive majority, Mandela was under both domestic and international pressure to ensure that the elections were fully representative. The constant thorn in his side was Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu head of the Inkatha Party and leading figure of the KwaZulu Natal region of South Africa. Fearing ANC repression, Buthelezi wanted KwaZulu recognised as a separate homeland, and threatened a boycott to achieve his demands, at least he had social capital to that effect (a homogenous Zulu culture and numbers). While Buthelezi didn’t gain an independent homeland, he did receive two significant concessions. The first was the removal of a single ballot system, which would have treated all votes the same, regardless of where they were cast. And the second was the authorisation of a constitutional change to give more regional autonomy to KwaZulu within South Africa.
Although Inkatha only received 6,2 percent of the vote nationwide, it handily defeated the ANC within KwaZulu itself, giving Buthelezi considerable power. While an actual boycott would probably have spelled the end for Buthelezi, leveraging the boycott threat earned him a prominent position in the post-apartheid South Africa that he was then able to parlay into earning the number two slot on the ANC ticket for the 1999 elections.
On the contrary, memory demonstrates that, with the exception of very high-profile cases, boycotting parties receive little support from the international community where our brothers from the other side survive on. For example, in Ethiopia, opposition parties boycotted the 1994 parliamentary elections despite appeals from aid donors and Ethiopia’s allies in the West. The ruling Ethiopian Peoples’ Revolutionary Democratic Front won a landslide victory, taking 484 of 547 seats in an election that was quickly recognised and supported by the United States. Similarly, the Ghanaian opposition decided to boycott the 1992 parliamentary elections to protest the re-election of Jerry Rawlings as President earlier that year in what was referred to as the “Stolen Verdict.” They wanted a fresh presidential election and assumed that the international attention from the boycott would garner enough condemnation to make it happen. As it turned out, the opposition was wrong on all counts, no new election was held, Rawlings remained President until 2001, and his party took 189 of 200 parliamentary seats in the 1992 election. These two examples are relatable to Zimbabwe, many a times the banking on international support to nullify elections seems to disfavour opposition.
An electoral boycott in any of the by-elections results in marginalisation of the boycotting group as it erases an important voice in a democracy. The boycott itself means that the opposition party is wilfully removing itself from periodic competition for political power. Choosing not to participate thus relegates the group to the position of vocal opposition without influence in the competition for scarce state resources. The marginalisation is enhanced when international support fails to materialise.
MDC’s Senate impasse of 2005 is not the only case where a boycott can turn a projected victory into a defeat. Three opposition parties in Cameroon decided to boycott the 1997 presidential elections, despite the fact that the parties combined had captured 56 percent of the parliamentary vote just five years earlier. But, still smarting over incumbent President Paul Biya’s narrow and disputed victory in 1992, the opposition chose not to compete against him in 1997.
As a result, Biya was re-elected in a landslide, garnering over 92 percent of the vote with a turnout of over 60 percent and remains president to this day. Sometimes, the fracturing of an opposition group over electoral boycotts creates even more dire outcomes.
In addition to the negative effects on the boycotting party, electoral boycotts often have the unintended consequence of strengthening the incumbent and providing them and their party with a more powerful mandate to lead.
The naked truth is that the absence of opposition from the race frees the playing field for the ruling party to obtain a supermajority, allowing it to take unrestricted action including invoking constitutional change. Perhaps the best example of this is in history, in Venezuela, where a series of ill-conceived electoral boycotts by the opposition from 2004-05 merely served to cement President Hugo Chavez in power. The 2004 boycotts of regional elections gave Chavistas 20 of 22 governorships nationwide. In 2005, four leading opposition parties, which held 41 Congressional seats at the time, decided to boycott in protest of Chavez’s heavy-handed rule, leading to a governmental sweep of all seats.
Online Reporter