Citizen Journalism and National Politics in Zimbabwe: The Case of the 2008 and 2013 Elections

Abstract

In his analysis of the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe, Donald Moore stopped short of saying that Zimbabwean democracy had breathed its last. Moore noted that a combination of Zimbabwe African National Union — Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF)’s tricks, coercion, populism, regional peers’ collusion and the opposition’s lackadaisical campaign produced a ZANU-PF “victory” that even surprised the victors (Moore, 2014, p. 47). In this election, the incumbent, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, got a 61% share of the presidential vote against Morgan Tsvangirai’s 34%. Given the various intrusions on individual freedoms in the run-up to and during the election, many scholars, like Moore, wondered whether the democratization process could be saved from this massive onslaught. Scholars have identified issues how ZANU-PF invested into its power-retention motive through a number of measures including the military-dominated registry and electoral commission, the marshalling of the military and militia to its cause (which organs in turn tortured, killed and raped perceived opponents especially in the 2008 presidential run-off elections), manipulating the inclusive government and hiring a foreign gang of election mercenaries (Moore, 2014, p. 147). Languages of catastrophe that emerged from academics seemed to give democracy no chance, and also took away the initiative from the ordinary person. Counter-narratives that emerged during, and in the immediate aftermath, of these elections have masked the various ways through which pro-democratic forces within the country had, against seemingly insurmountable odds, made their voices heard and perhaps even narrowed the avenues that had previously been shamelessly manipulated by the incumbent political party. In the process, these forces have created a database for most electoral-related issues — which might be exploited by those seeking a more nuanced understanding of what actually transpired during the 2008 and 2013 elections.