Abstract
ABSTRACTThe emergence of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, in 1999 radically reconfigured Zimbabwe's political landscape. MDC greatly challenged the electoral dominance the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front had enjoyed since independence in 1980. As literature on Zimbabwe's ‘crisis' has emphasised, throughout the 2000s ZANU-PF was predominantly preoccupied with repelling this challenge. Central to these efforts were violence and a patronage system involving all state institutions. However, the position of chieftaincy in the new politics has suffered scholarly neglect. This article examines how the government enlisted chiefs and lower-level traditional leaders, through intimidation and patronage networks, in its attempts to make rural areas an exclusively ZANU-PF vote bank. It utilises interviews, newspapers and Hansard, among other publicly available material, to argue that MDC’s hegemonic threat forced ZANU-PF to turn to the customary capital of the hitherto neglected chiefs, and that the consequent relationship became an impediment to democracy in Zimbabwe.
Published Version
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