1 zimbabwe election support network [zesn] - Nehanda Radio

emergence and participation of ZUM in the 1995 elections somehow galvanized voter interest,
though it was short lived.
The Post 2000 Era
The post 1999 saw a resurgence of more competitive party politics with increases in voter
turnout in the 2000 election in quantitative terms. Out of 5.04 million registered voters, about
2.5 million voted in the election. The post 2000 era therefore marked a watershed in voter
turnout trends. The Constitution Reform process and the 2000 Referendum revived interest in
national politics. The NO VOTE result in a way revealed that ZANU PF was not as invincible as
was generally supposed. The 2000 election also marked a watershed in that it put to an end
the de facto one-party state situation when the MDC won 57 out of the 120 directly elected
seats. The election signaled stiff competition between ZANU PF and MDC.
On a negative note, the 2000 and 2002 elections also marked descent into widespread
violence, coercion and intimidation with over 150 people reportedly killed [ZPP Report, 2006].
The run up to the 2002 presidential elections was one of the most politically volatile post
independence election eras ever experienced in Zimbabwe. It experienced the highest record
of gross forms of violence in comparison with the 2005. Topping the list in terms of election
violations were the four provinces of Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Masvingo and the
Midlands with Mashonaland West and Central as serious hot spot contenders. These provinces
are incidentally ruling party strongholds.
Election violence also took the form of hate speech and hate politics from both main
presidential contenders, however with ruling party candidates on the lead, ruling party political
rallies generally laced with slogans such as Pasi ne MDC, fist pointing, use of military
language, swearing, labeling of other contestants as enemies of the state, sellouts and stooges
of the West, betrayers of the revolution and declarations by the service chiefs that they would
not salute any presidential winner who does not have war liberation war credentials.
This escalation in violence in the run up to the 2002 presidential elections has to be understood
within the context of the emergence of the MDC and its visible inroads into areas that had
hitherto been ruling party strongholds. Organized violence may have been utilized as a political
weapon designed to fence off rural areas from opposition penetration. Also instructive is to note
that the 2002 presidential elections had occurred hot on the heels of a shocking NO VOTE
referendum, a vote out-turn which the ruling party interpreted as part of a grand imperialist
strategy by the MDC, the white commercial farmer and the British to stab the ZANU PF-initiated
land acquisition agenda on the back. Thus, within ruling party thinking, the NO VOTE was a
warning signal that its “liberation agenda” was under siege.
It was in these contexts that restrictive pieces of legislation such as the Public Order and
Security Act [POSA] and Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act [AIPPA],
developments which political analysts liken to the Smith Regime which relied on an array of
repressive measures [for instance, the notorious Law and Order [Maintenance] Act] which had
given virtually unlimited powers to the government to search private homes, ban or restrict
public gatherings, ban publications and break labor strikes, among other things.
The resuscitation of the land issue and its quick conversion into an election campaign political
good tensed up the political temperature and polarized society as criticism of land
implementation was treated as total rejection of the land redistribution agenda and what the
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