adminWhere is Evan Mawarire? Is he an elections monitor in the upcoming US elections that will see Trump pacing his racist neck into the white house? Is he even still in America? What happened to the hearts he broke when he eloped and left his family behind?
There once was a boycott of the national pledge, today our children pompously recite it. I am definite that the frenzy of #This . . . has slowly cremated itself, its disciples should only wait for its obituary which I will consecrate some few weeks to. All these are events and individuals who are part of the “Zimbabwean idea” who negligently lose trail of behaviour and nature whips them into direction. I once wrote about how fast reactionaries are quickly forgotten. It’s a behavioural cycle in Zimbabwe; we forget your opportunistic ideas, you make noise when you have not thought through your actions and a few weeks, months down the year we remind you of your past failed revolt.
Legends are ideologically stubborn, they do not sway from their values however, challenged or ridiculous they seem, I am not one in the making, but I am a disciple of my own ideas, a stern observer, inquisitive listener and a pliant writer, I write what I think, if you do not agree with me, engage me, in any way its mandatory that we do not agree. Our biggest enemy is the person who cannot think for himself but believes that Western investment is the answer to all our problems, removing Zanu-PF from the throne will erase the drought splurge and repetition of failed opposition coalitions will surely change 2018 anticipation Alas! 2018 will tell. When already ZimPF has Matabele leadership squabbles, MDCs A-Z have no alternative and are splitting every half year, Nera is ridiculed for its boycott of Norton, and a looming debate of pro-Matabele politics is gaining momentum in the region (I will get back to that some other time). All these are indicators of what will happen in 2018. Asambeni bo!
Where is the power?
Because we now have forgotten about what I promised you that you will speedily forget, let’s get back on track and discuss political strategy because that is where all the power and money is. It will be grave if we assume that elections are determined by politically active or affiliated citizens only. The year 2018 is different from all years. This is the year when most young voters will cast their first ballot compared to any other electoral year in Zimbabwe. I am talking about everyone born in the year 1995-2000 who were not eligible to vote in 2013 but born in an epoch where our politics, economy and society is fragmented. These are the people born during the momentum of opposition politics in Zimbabwe and have been indoctrinated to be opposition because all their woes are attributed to the ruling party. Uninformed political proselytisation became subject of socialisation of both the urban and rural adolescents and the party has not done much to attract this kind of voter. In fact, the ruling party has not invested in the KEY voter, and this is the electorate that holds the keys to the state house.
How does the KEY voter think?
A random discussion with a first year university student informs you of their political perception on any dispensation in Zimbabwe. They are full of anger, they feel robbed, raped and dislodged. The most disappointing part is they do not know the reason of their anger, they have no explanation or description of who robbed and raped them, but all they display are heartfelt emotions that are easily swept any direction; misdirected feelings. Such an emotional person is costly to all attempts of defending the goals of Chimurenga. Because of their feelings which have no epicentre but cultivated by parents who have a disgruntled political view, they are vulnerable to opposition buttering. This is a large chunk of an electorate that is eagerly waiting to cast their first vote in 2018. The media exposure they have been subjected to repetitively nudge the importance of casting a vote, but does not inform them how to make a voting decision. With the American elections that have been overstocked on international news, they feel incentivised to also vote, but the question is, for who? An uninformed citizen is dangerous to himself and any decision they make is highly drastic hence I feel it is the role of the ruling party to start investing in this KEY voter.
I discovered that mentioning of the name Zanu-PF to these young minds is associated with fear, failure and inaccessibility.
Truth be told, that is the common discourse that these children have been indoctrinated with and it needs redressing while there is still time. It is some of the reasons why this group is blankly emotional. They have no access to the truth and what they are left with is an unchallenged line of thinking, which is the sole mandate of Zanu-PF to assist in unlearning. To them, the idea of Zanu-PF has no link with protecting the gains of Umvukela, if they are from Matabeleland; Zanu-PF and development cannot be put in one sentence, if one is from Harare; Zanu-PF and vending are synonyms worse of all, if you set foot in Hillbrow, South Africa, the biggest failure in a foreign land will attribute his lack of thinking to the party — all blame is on the party, yet it’s entirely not true.
The degree of development in Bulawayo may vary but let’s not forget that our poverty in the city has for 16 years been a result of the likes of suspended Deputy Mayor and his MDC-T cabal who have syphoned council property and finances and less focused on rebuilding and rebranding the city. It is not Zanu-PF’s fault that you chose to go and not think in Hillbrow that you are even failing in that city of gold, the party is not responsible for what and how you should think. But all these are our important special cases who need to unlearn some things and the party still has not reached to this and new voter, and this is the voter who will cost Umhlangano. When you attend a rally, it’s the same faces you saw in 2013, now a bit older, if its new faces, it will be our grannies who have lost hope in opposition and little or none young vibrant members have joined the party.
A side note, this ZITF, I witnessed a couple of my friends buying Zanu-PF cards, I asked them why they made that choice, listen to their response “in 2008 when we would queue for mealie meal, we would be asked for party cards, so we need to be secure this time around”. I was disturbed by this response because these are members who do not translate into party voters.
Their reason of joining the party is far from the intentions of cadres who want to serve the country and protect its ideological interests. Let me be a bit scholarly in briefly explaining this political strategy. Among a plethora of models that describe voting behaviour, I want to attach my friends’ decision and how the party may harness such individuals using what is called the Michigan model of political behaviour which I found to be interesting and relevant in my submission.
A Bit of a tutorial
The Michigan Model was developed at the University of Michigan and focuses on long-term patterns of partisanship. According to this model, social location is regarded as the determining factor of who voters interact with and which political party they will support. This model is based on findings that suggested a lack of election-specific influences, and instead an attachment to parties wherein voters tended to vote as they always had and as their families also had. Elcock (1976:220) explains this attachment to political parties as being caused by the inheritance of a partisan self-image. In order for partisanship to develop, early socialisation is of significance. This is because early socialisation experiences shape subsequent information processing and political behaviour. Consequently citizens develop stable participation and partisan orientations that provide them with standing decisions both for turnout and for choice.
Early socialisation happens as children first match with their family and thereafter with the population at large, including teachers and role models and even though parents are mostly altruistic they still perceive the welfare of their children through their own “filters”, and thus parents transmit their own preferences. Long-term patterns of partisanship are subsequently developed. According to Wolak (2009:573) partisanship is a very powerful influence on individuals’ perceptions of politics and one’s identification with a political party then strongly informs choices during campaigns. Furthermore, when citizens’ levels of information are low, they use their partisanship as a decision heuristic to “fill in the blanks”. When, however, new information is received, partisanship causes a bias in the interpretation thereof .There are also factors outside the family that shape partisanship in adolescence, however, parents are usually regarded as the most influential on adolescent partisanship as they are often more respected and trusted as sources of political information.
There is a general sense that traditional politics and representative democracy—whereby voters determine the outcome of power struggles at the ballot box—fail to attract the attention of younger cohorts who feel alienated from political processes.
Recent events have shown that youth are critical in bringing about social and political transformation in Africa. From the dissolution of the apartheid regime in South Africa in the early 1990s, the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia in 2011; the ‘Y’en a Marre!’ (‘Enough is enough!’) and ‘Ma Carte d’Electeur and Mon Arme’ (‘My voting card, my weapon’) campaigns in Senegal in 2011–12 and the third-term revolution in Burkina Faso in 2014, young people remain at the forefront of democratic struggles on the continent, and the party has to make its politics have that “thing”, make politics “cool”. To be continued…
Micheal Mhlanga is a research and strategic communication specialist and is currently serving Leaders for Africa Network (LAN) as the Programmes and Public Liaison Officer. He also administrates multiple youth public dialogue forums in Zimbabwe including the annual Reading Pan Africanism Symposium (REPS) and Back to Pan Africanism Conference.
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