Punishing Dissent, Silencing Citizens: The Zimbabwe Elections 2008

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Abstract:

The 2008 Harmonised Election in Zimbabwe was arguably the most historic of the post-independence elections, as for the first time in the last 28 years the ruling party lost its parliamentary majority and the President lost the first round of the Presidential election. This result represented the culmination of a decade of political and civic opposition to a former liberation party whose legitimacy has been greatly eroded by nearly three decades of intolerant rule. At a national level it is a clear message that despite the extremely harsh and repressive political environment in which elections have been conducted in Zimbabwe, the people of the country found the “resources of hope” required to say no to continued authoritarian rule. For the former liberation movements in the region this is also a message of the capacity of once venerated liberation parties to degenerate into unpopular cleptocracies. However it is the violence that has been unleashed by the Mugabe regime on Zimbabwean citizens that has demonstrated the hollowness of Mugabe’s anti-colonial message, with the real targets of his party’s onslaught being the impoverished and battered citizens of the country. The conduct of ZANU PF since the March 29th elections has encapsulated the degeneracy of the Mugabe legacy, and the security threat that this regime now poses to Zimbabweans and the region. The report that follows is a narrative of hope, thwarted by a leader and political party who view the source of their legitimacy not as the electoral process, but the combination of a selective imposition of a liberation legacy and the brutal deployment of political compliance.