“I’m 35 and I have never voted. I nearly registered in 2013 but they closed while I was in the queue. I haven’t decided what to do in 2018. But what’s the point really, when they never accept defeat?” That was Tatenda, a young mother of 2 who lives in Glen Norah, when I asked her opinion on voting.
“I’m 16 and will be 18 in 2018. I won’t be a child anymore. But I have never thought about voting. My friends and I never talk about politics. It’s boring and it’s for old people. Plus, who do I vote for? I really don’t know them”. That was Chipo, who is Tatenda’s eldest daughter.
Tatenda had Chipo when she was 19. I asked Chipo if she was excited now that she knew she could also vote along with her mother in 2018. “Not really,” she said laughing at the other end of the phone. Then later after further conversation she said, “Maybe. Maybe I will vote. But it also depends if my friends want to vote, too”
I was talking to this young family a few weeks ago. I have been interested in the world of young Zimbabweans and their attitude to politics in general. Although they are mother and daughter, under Zimbabwe’s Constitution both Tatenda and Chipo qualify as “youths”. A youth is defined as any person under the age of 35. They form the bulk of Zimbabwe’s young population, but they are also the least active when it comes to electoral politics, as statistics presented later in this article will reveal.
It’s an intriguing issue, but one that is not unique to Zimbabwe, as debates elsewhere, even in the older democracies around the political behaviour of the so-called Millennials demonstrate. In the UK, the #Brexit debate ignited similar questions about the low levels of participation of young people in elections. In the US, psychologist Jean Twenge has referred to it as “Generation Me”, which she argues, while tolerant and open-minded, is also “narcissistic” and “disengaged”. However, writing for the Washington Post, Russell Dalton argues that there is no real difference in participation and engagement between today’s young people and previous generations of young people – they might not turn out for elections but they participate in politics in other ways. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2016/03/22/why-dont-millennials-vote/
Nevertheless, the issue is more acute in countries like Zimbabwe where their populations are very young and the limited participation of young people in elections poses a challenge for democratic representation as the majority are excluded from the key political decision-making process. What accounts for the poor representation of young people in Zimbabwean electoral politics? What can be done to encourage them? These are some of the questions that form the core of this article, which is preliminary in nature as clearly, the area is in need of more detailed, scientific research and analysis.
However, even with this limited information, it is clear to me that young people constitute a neglected but critical constituency which could play a decisive role in defining the outcome of elections.
Understanding the diversity of young people
The young people discussed in this article are the so-called “Born-Free” generation or Millennials, those who gained adulthood in the new millennium. The youngest ones, born in 2000 will be celebrating their 18th birthday in 2018, when the next elections are due. They will be the first time voters (FTVs) – those who have never voted before. However, it would be disingenuous to classify the young people together as a homogenous group. The truth is there is diversity and variety within the broad category of young people. There are nuances formed around multiple indices like gender, race, class, ethnicity, and even geographical location. Thus for example, the political behaviours and attitudes of young people in rural areas are likely to be quite different from the behaviours and attitudes of urban youths. The factors that influence and shape their behaviours are different, leading to different outcomes in how they respond to or participate elections. Likewise, a young person in the privileged suburban sections of Harare is unlikely to have the same political experiences and behaviours as a so-called “ghetto youth” in Mbare or Highfields. In the middle class suburbs, politics is distant phenomenon, while in the ghettoes, politics is played out very openly.
There are also likely to be gender-based differences. Young men are likely to have different political experiences and perspectives from young women, given the different roles that a highly patriarchal society thrusts upon them. The obstacles faced by young women in political participation are likely to differ from those encountered by young men. For example, whether or not a young woman can walk a long distance to go and queue all day to register to vote has to compete with her numerous domestic chores, and often the latter takes precedence. Furthermore, a dominantly patriarchal political environment in which women are generally marginalised and excluded gives little inspiration to young women to take part in political activities.
Race can also a factor. The political experience of young white or Asian Zimbabweans could be different from the experience of their black counterparts. Limited participation in political affairs is also reflected in the low representation of white, Asian and other racial groups within Zimbabwean politics. Young people within those ethnic and racial groups may not have many political roles models in the older groups to aspire to. A racially hostile political environment, in which white Zimbabweans have been excluded as outsiders could have given the impression that there is no space for young people from that background. This reflects in low levels of participation by young people, even though they might have an interest in politics.
Further, whether or not a young person is employed might also affect their political behaviour and attitude towards voting. As one young man stated, “As long as zvakarongeka (everything is in order), and one is earning regular and comfortable income, why bother voting? I just focus on my work!” But another young man who is unemployed explained that he had no time to vote because he had to use all the time he had to look for means to survive. “We have to spend our time hustling, so voting is not a priority,” he explained.
The point here is that there are a variety of factors which entail that there are fine distinctions in the general group of young people. They do not all behave the same and the factors that shape their behaviours differ depending on who they are, their station in life and the circumstances that affect their lives. What is important is for political parties to be aware of the importance of this constituency and to invest more time and resources in order to gain a better understanding of the political behaviours of young people and respond to them accordingly.
As this article demonstrates, the demographics of Zimbabwe make these young people a key voting constituency. However, I also argue that this constituency is also neglected and under-appreciated by most political actors.
Young people in politics
While the role of young people has attracted more attention in recent years as the national population becomes increasingly younger, their role in Zimbabwean politics and political parties has a long history. After all, it was the young people, some barely into their teens, who crossed the border to Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania to join the liberation struggle in the 1970s. The majority of recruits were young men and women, often boys and girls, who left school and college to take up arms. Both ZANU and ZAPU, the major liberation parties, had vibrant youth departments. Indeed, the zeal and energy of the struggle came from its youthful members. After independence, these youth departments played an important role in mobilising people during the 1980 and subsequent elections, sometimes using coercive means particularly in the rural areas. The wings were often described as the “vanguard” of their respective parties.
Virtually all political parties that have emerged after independence have replicated the same model of ZANU PF, with the youth department being a key organ, alongside the women’s wing. Therefore, where ZANU PF has the Women’s League and the Youth League, its major rival, the MDC-T has the Women’s Assembly and the Youth Assembly. Other parties use similar models. The differences are in the names, otherwise the functions and purposes similar. The youth wings are usually treated as the foot-soldiers of their political parties. The key point here is that all the major political parties traditionally recognise the significance of young people in their parties.
Nevertheless, this seemingly special status is also a tool of marginalisation, as they are often kept at the margins of the national leadership structure. What representation young people have in national leadership structures is usually of a token character, often restricted to “youth affairs”. In a deeply patriarchal society, seniority by age is still taken too seriously within political parties, with young people expected to pay their role in the youth departments and not much further. In ZANU PF, Absolom Sikhosana who is over 60 was the long-standing Secretary for Youth in its Politburo until 2014, when he was replaced by Togarepi Pupurai, who is over 50. There are young people who have risen within their parties and occupied more senior roles during their youthful years, such as Learnmore Jongwe and Nelson Chamisa in the MDC, but this was partly due to the individuals’ exceptional qualities and the fact that the MDC had been founded on the back of a strong students’ movement contribution which could not be ignored.
Current demographics
In this part, I present the data obtained from the 2012 population census and analyses of the voters roll carried out by civil society groups before the 2013 elections.
Zimbabwe’s young population
According to the 2012 official census report, 41% of the population of just over 13 million people are below the age of 15 and 55% are between the ages of 15 and 64 while just 4% are above the age of 65. This makes for a population pyramid which is typical in developing countries – one with a very broad base and an extremely narrow summit, signifying a very young population overall. After all the 2012 census demonstrated that life expectancy in Zimbabwe was just 38 years. By the time a person gets to 35, the maximum youth age, he will be nearing the average life expectancy age. This means most Zimbabweans are likely to die before they are eligible to contest for the presidency or a senatorial post, whose minimum age requirement is 40 years. It’s an absurdity which shows the gap between the law and lived realities of the people.
A large number of those who were 12-15 years in 2012, will be at least 18 years or above in 2018 and therefore eligible to vote. The implication of this 2012 population data is that the largest number of eligible voters in Zimbabwe are in the young age group below the age of 35. Nevertheless, being eligible by virtue of age is one thing. Whether or not they can actually vote depends on whether they are registered to vote and whether they actually make the effort to go and vote on polling day.
Inflated voters’ register
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s official report for the 2013 elections states that 6,441,157 people were registered on the voters’ roll. However, this is almost implausible given that the 2012 census puts the national adult population at 6,647,779. This would place the registration rate in Zimbabwe at nearly 100%, which is impossible given the fact that the majority of young adults are seriously under–represented on the voters’ roll. This suggests that the voters’ roll was highly inflated, probably included deceased persons, persons who were no longer in the country or fictitious names. Some people in the Diaspora reported that their names appeared on the voters’ roll even though they had never registered to vote. Married women also reported that their names had been changed to reflect their married names when they had never applied for such changes, which suggested their details had been unilaterally transferred from the marriage register without their authority or knowledge.
Young and under-represented on the voters roll
An analysis of the voters’ roll done by the Research Advocacy Unit (RAU) just before the 2013 elections showed that nearly 2 million young people under the age of 30 years were not registered to vote. This represented 29% of the adult population based on the 2012 census report. As RAU pointed out, it was highly probable that there were unregistered people in other age bands, which would make the overall proportion of unregistered adults much higher than 29%. As already pointed out, this does not tally with the ZEC figures which suggest that the number of registered voters nearly matches the total adult population. It is these discrepancies which seriously undermine the credibility of the voters’ roll.
The same RAU report on the June 2013 voters’ roll shows that only 8,87% of young people between the ages of 18-19 years were registered to vote. This meant more that 90% of voters in that age band would have been unable to vote even though they were eligible by age. In their analysis, ZESN found that while the 2012 census showed that 18,24% of the population was between the ages of 18-22 years, just 2,39% of them were registered to vote. Further, in the 23-29 age group which constitutes 22,97% of the eligible voting population, just 11,7% were registered to vote. All these figures demonstrate gross under-representation of young people on the voters’ roll, relative to their actual population.
Lagging behind regional peers
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) also released a similar report, showing that Zimbabwe compared very poorly with fellow peers in the region in respect of registration of young people. According to ZESN, young people in Zimbabwe represented just 5% of the total number of registered voters in in 2013, compared to Zambia where young people constituted 20,61% of registered voters in 2011. The figure was 16,5% in South Africa and 16,86% in Kenya. Admittedly, these are still low figures given that all these countries also have young populations, but by comparison, they are way ahead of Zimbabwe.
Over-representation of older people
To see the full extent of the problem, it is useful to compare the registration rates of young people and older people. Both the ZESN and RAU reports demonstrate that by comparison, older adults are disproportionately over-represented on the voters’ roll. The reports show that in the over 80 years age group, there were 155,653 people according to the 2012 census, whereas the voters’ roll showed there were 343,187 registered people in the sage age group. This was a serious anomaly which demonstrated that there were more people on the voters’ roll in that age group than the existing number of living people according to the national census. This could not even be accounted for by the margin of error in the population census. The RAU analysis showed that at least 116,000 people on the voters’ roll were over 100 years old, with some as old as 114 years old, improbable figures in a country where life expectancy is pegged at just 38. There was also over-representation of the 40-49 age group where the 2012 census showed there were 831,482 people in the country in that age group, but the voters’ roll stated there were 1,250,989 people. Reasons for this over-representation have already been given above where I discussed the inflated voters’ roll. For example, the voters’ roll contained names of deceased adults. These names had not been removed from the register as required by law.
The over-representation of older people further exacerbates the gap between the old and the young on the voters’ roll. It amplifies the marginalisation and exclusion of young people in electoral politics.
Widening gap since 2013
In view of the fact that there has not been any registration of voters except in the few constituencies where by elections have been held post the 2013 elections, it is clear that the number of young people who are not registered has increased. It will certainly be higher in 2018 unless urgent interventions are made to ensure that young people, especially FTVs are registered. Given that Zimbabwe is a young country by population, this means a large number of people are disenfranchised, which negates the fundamental principle of universal adult suffrage and the right to vote which are enshrined in the 2013 Constitution.
By not registering to vote, the young people who have a bigger stake in the future than their older counterparts have effectively outsourced their decision-making powers to older people who are already over-represented. Interestingly, notwithstanding the prominent roles of the youth wings in the major political parties, the older leadership do not seem to have made serious efforts to encourage young people to register to vote and to play a more visible role in the decision-making process besides singing and cheering older politicians. They seem content to have them as cheer-leaders, rather than grooming them for future leadership.
Why are young people under-represented on the voters’ roll?
It is important to investigate why young people are under-represented on the voters’ roll. This is something that political parties need to invest in and this is just a guiding investigation. Civil society can also play a role in this regard. Why are young people missing from the voters’ roll given the fact that they constitute the largest number of eligible voters and have a bigger interest than older voters in the future of the country. Here I offer some reasons, though I’m certain more detailed research could yield more nuanced reasons for poor representation of the Born-free generation.
Apathy: why should I vote?
There is general lack of interest in politics, which is a result of various drivers:
It won’t change anything
There are many people who have grown despondent about elections mainly due to the manner in which they have been handled and the apparent pointlessness of the whole exercise. As one young person bluntly stated, “more and more people now believe that voting doesn’t change things in Zimbabwe because of rigging …”
Another simply stated that she was not registered because “knowing your vote won’t count because rigging” makes it a pointless exercise. There is a clear impression that elections are seen as grossly manipulated political processes which never change anything.
The static nature of Zimbabwe’s politics contributes to these perceptions. In Mr Mugabe, the Born-Free generation has known only one leader all their lives. He is 92 and has been in charge for 36 years and in all those years, the country’s economy has declined drastically and poverty has risen. Most young people are graduating but there are no jobs. If they don’t skip the border, they are forced to work the streets as vendors. Elections have been regular, but they have not yielded any change. As one young person put it there is no point voting “knowing very well if the opposition wins, the other guy is still staying … so why waste time?”
Young people have observed that ZANU PF has total command of the state and it literally does what it wants. The impression they have is that the opposition is powerless against ZANU PF. In 2008, they saw Morgan Tsvangirai beating Robert Mugabe in the first round of elections but they also witnessed the system stubbornly refusing to concede power and using extreme violence to retain control. They look at elections, the rigging and manipulation, ZANU PF’s total control of the process and they wonder whether it’s worth the effort of queuing to register and vote. “My husband did not register for the 2013 elections, I had to go by myself,” said one young woman. “His reason was that why waste my time when we saw what happened during the [2008] election?” Another young person echoed the same sentiments, stating, “Apathy comes from thinking voting won’t make a difference.” Another one added, “I think people have lost confidence in the ballot system that’s why most think its pointless voting.”
It is clear this loss of faith and confidence in the electoral process is an important factor accounting for lower numbers of young people on the voters’ register. The challenge for parties is to restore confidence in the electoral system, which is why the campaign for electoral reforms is critical.
A game for old men and women
Another driver of apathy is that a lot of young people see politics as a dirty, boring and often risky game for older people. They have little interest in politics much of which they cannot relate to. One young person wrote that his peers stay away because of “a belief that voting is for elderly people … they are the ones who fought the war …” For him voting has a direct connection to the war, probably a reflection of how voting and elections have been presented in the dominant public media.
As one civic society activist who works with young people stated, “They don’t see voting as something that affects them directly. They don’t pay the bills, they don’t buy food, etc … They also don’t follow the news often enough. Youths will shock you at times when they don’t know who the VP or their MP is. So they probably do not care much about politics …” This is probably the narcissism and disengagement that psychologist Jean Twenge was talking about albeit in respect of young people in the US. There is a sense that the young people are uninterested in electoral processes and have outsourced their responsibilities to their parents’ generation.
Lack of suitable candidates: who is there to vote for?
A further driver of apathy is the scarcity of political choices for young voters. One young voter who volunteered an opinion stated, “The candidates and political parties have not convinced them enough so even if they wanted, they wouldn’t have a candidate to vote for”. Young voters look at the political landscape and find that the politicians in all the major parties are very similar. They do not exhibit material differences. MPs from all parties appear like they are after the benefits of office, such as allowances and motor vehicles more than representing the interests of the people. Ministers collect luxury vehicles and build mansions rather than attending to the needs of the people. “My friends see politicians becoming wealthier because of their positions. They are not interested in helping other men make more money while they continue to suffer, so there is no reason to vote,” said one young man. This suggests corruption by ministers, MPs and other public officers is actually driving away young people from politics, seeing politics as private, rather than public enterprise.
Furthermore, the leaders of political parties hardly change. They are frustrated by what appear to be lack of credible alternatives between the leaders. Whereas the over 30s generation remember the inspiration of opposition leaders in the early years, the splits and divisions in the opposition have caused a lot of disillusionment. Often young people ask, we can register but who do we vote for? As one young person put it, “Why should I go through the frustrating process of registration when there is no one I can really vote for?” Another added, “We have no faith in the nominated candidates, especially when they are part of the old guard whom we do not know much about”. For them, the current crop of political leaders do not inspire them to invest time in registering and voting. This suggests parties need to look carefully at refreshing their leadership structures. The leadership conveyor belt must not be static.
Lack of young leaders
An additional problem is located in political parties where there are very few young people in leadership roles with whom young people can easily identify or aspire to be. Most of the politicians are old or too old and have been in their roles for many years. Politicians are typically their fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers, with a very limited sprinkling of youthful leaders, who are almost always at the periphery, doing the work of foot-soldiers. There is no culture of succession or leadership rotation in political parties which means there is a traffic jam in the corridors of leadership, with young people often at the back of the queue. This causes frustration in the ranks of young people who see little point in pursuing a political career.
Parties have also made no effort to go outside their traditional structures to look for young and fresh talent. There are many people who were toddlers when the MDC was formed in 1999. But they are talented and can help regenerate the party, attracting new voters in the process. But this needs parties to be pro-active. Just like companies, parties must head-hunt and identify talent to boost their work, particularly in the technical divisions. As one young person stated, “From discussions with others, most youths do not relate with the political parties that are there. These parties do not have a relationship with the youth and only want to talk to them during elections. They feel their needs are not be catered for. They think it’s useless to vote. There is a generation gap and youths do not relate to the politics or to the people in politics”.
Political risk: politics is a dirty game
Another factor which pushes young people away from participating in electoral politics is the excessive risk associated with politics. Zimbabwean politics has a reputation of being notoriously violent, particularly during election periods. The younger generation has grown up in a period of violent politics combined with difficult economic and social conditions throughout the 2000s. In the Matabeleland and Midlands regions, Gukurahundi in the 1980s left a terrible imprint whose full extent is yet to be told. Politics is particularly violent and brutal towards young women who often face sexual abuse and misogyny in political spaces. Young people see the violence and wonder whether taking part in politics is worthwhile. Other forms of political participation, such as protests are often met with severe brutality by law enforcement authorities – including beatings, arrests and unlawful detentions. Young people know the case of Itai Dzamara, a political activist who challenged President Mugabe before he was abducted in March 2015 and has not been accounted for. Politics is seen as a dirty game which is not worth it. The result is most young people choose to keep away from political spaces.
Ignorance
Some young people may simply be ignorant over the potential of their participation in politics or their constitutional rights to participate in politics and the right to vote. They might not even know the criteria for eligibility to vote, the process of registration, why they should register and where to register. One young person simply responded, “Don’t even know where I should go to register” These are basic details which can be taken for granted by the average adult voter, but for a young 18 year old who has just become eligible to vote, these issues are not simple. This points to the problem of poor voter education, which is usually rolled out only towards elections when time is very limited. One young person thought there was a conspiracy by government to prevent young people from registering. He said government provided a lot of information regarding birth certificates and IDs but “when it comes to registering voters, there is an information blackout”. This suggests a lack of trust in government when it comes to electoral matters. Another young woman was more positive saying, “If young people knew we are more than our parents’ generation and can use our numbers to make decisions, we would go out and vote in our numbers” Fundamental rights and freedoms should be a key part of the school curriculum. Apart from sensitizing young people on their right to vote at an early age, such education helps to build a more informed citizenry.
Too smart to vote
This is by no means confined to young people. It is informed by the attitude that one is too smart to be involved in politics and voting processes. They might be seen in the wealthier middle-class districts as activities for other people, probably in the high-density or rural areas. This is partly due to the nature of politics, where it’s often played out openly in the neighbourhoods of high-density suburbs, whereas young people in the middle-class, northern suburbs are usually shielded behind the high walls of their homes. Thus geographically, for these youths in the middle class suburbs, politics is something that happens “out there in the ghettos and rural areas”, to use words of one young person. For many of these young people, the idea of standing in a queue to register or to vote on polling day is regarded by some as a waste of time or beneath them. In some cases the nonchalant attitude towards voting is because individuals think their vote will not change anything. As a young person confided, “From my circles, poor registration is because of the attitude that we just won’t be bothered to do it. Very likely there is a long queue and the attitude is we aren’t that type of person to queue for things – another ‘middle class behaviour’. When I registered we went as friends and peer pressure helped as no-one had really reached out to us to explain the significance of voting …”
Another young person summed it up very succinctly, “I think there is just poor civic orientation for young people regrettably those that are supposedly “educated” are perhaps the worst culprits. We don’t make an effort to exercise our rights, we are too busy, we are too smart”.
This attitude means a large number of people stay away from elections. The price they pay however is that they have to live with the consequences of decisions made by a few.
Prohibitive process – identification, queues, paper-work, cost, time-consuming …
The voter registration process can be inconvenient, restrictive and prohibitive. Some of the rules are designed to exclude. First, voter registration is supposed to be a continuous exercise. However, ZEC is not fulfilling this constitutional obligation and it has admitted as much in recent days, even giving excuses on behalf of government, saying there is no money for the exercise, suggesting h lack of government support is “understandable”. The failure to provide facilities for continuous voter registration is a clear breach of the constitution. The implication is that ZEC will only start registering people just before the 2018 elections, when the time will be severely limited. This will result in millions of eligible voters failing to register. Most of those who will be affected will be young people, particularly FTVs.
Proof of residence
In some cases, the requirements for registration can be too restrictive and prohibitive. One is required to provide an ID document but also proof of residence, which is not always easy to get, especially for the unemployed youths are of no permanent abode and have to depend on other people for accommodation. In 2013, this problem was recognised and a temporary solution was to allow people who were registering to use affidavits as proof of residence. One solution would be to remove the residence requirement completely or to make the use of affidavits a permanent facility to prevent restrictions for young, highly mobile people. One young voter who is registered in Mutare but now works in Harare said he is unlikely to change his registration if he has to go back to Mutare to do it.
Slow, bureaucratic and frustrating process
The long and slow queues and the bureaucracy at the voter registration centres lead to inconveniences and turns young people away from the process. This can be frustrating where after queuing for the whole day a person is turned away for one reason or another. “The process [of registration] was frustrating,” said one young voter. “I had to wait the whole day to get registered. Finally, I registered, but most people that were in the queue with me had already left.” Thus the process itself is exclusionary. This is a generation which spends most of its time using technology and taking residence in cyberspace. They are more adept at using technology. If voter registration was done using new technologies, it would be more user-friendly to the younger generation. As one young person stated. “Voter registration is inconvenient. It should be automatic based on [the] address given when getting [an] ID …” Another added, “Too much paperwork or long queues are never desirable. If we could check online or at the click of a button, the better” This calls on the need to embrace technology in the voter registration process. But the problem is that political parties are also averse to technology.
Cost
In some cases, cost of acquiring necessary documents for registration is prohibitive, especially in poorer, low-income communities. Getting a long-form birth certificate or changing an ID from ‘alien’ status to a full citizen can cost up to USD10, a considerable amount considering that an average family in the rural areas survives on less than a dollar a day. In such cases, the issue of voter registration is less of a priority. Before the 2013 elections there was a moratorium on cost, which meant these processes were done at no cost. This should be considered, if only for a limited window until the 2018 elections.
Long-term effects of Gukurahundi
In Matabeleland and the Midlands, the effects of Gukurahundi in the 1980s are still being felt. As one civil society activist who works with young people stated, many young people whose parents were killed by the Fifth Brigade during Gukurahundi are still unable to get birth certificates. Families have not been able to get death certificates for the deceased. This has left many young people in the region unable to secure identity documents which are necessary not just to enjoy many rights of citizenship but also to satisfy voter registration requirements. This calls on the need to address the wounds of Gukurahundi, which continue to affect present and potentially future generations. But how does government grant death certificates when it refuses to acknowledge the atrocities that took place in the region? This is a matter that requires comprehensive redress.
Exclusion by geography
The exclusion of young voters is also due to geographical and socio-economic circumstances. For example, as one young person noted, voter registration centres in rural areas are usually located at distant locations. This particularly affects young women who have to perform multiple chores in the household and spending a whole day at a voter registration centre may be regarded as a waste of time. They have to fetch firewood, water, cook, wash household equipment, clean the household, etc. In these circumstances, voter registration is not a priority.
Overall, the system has created a skewed electoral environment which is biased against urban voters, where a majority of young disenfranchised voters reside. ZESN found in its 2013 research that as much as 750,000 urban voters had been disenfranchised through lack of registration. The state typically deploys more voter registration facilities in rural areas and leaves densely populated urban areas with very limited facilities. RAU found that there is a 94% registration rate in purely rural constituencies, compared to 74% in urban areas, a 20% deficit which favours ZANU PF whose traditional strongholds are the rural areas. In respect of young people, ZESN found that there is a 99,97% registration rate in rural areas, while by comparison, the figure is 67,94% in urban areas. This demonstrates that the majority of rural youths are registered compared to their urban counterparts.
Understanding the new generation of voters
Clearly, the Born-free generation of voters poses a serious challenge for existing political parties. They are a different generation whose world-view has been shaped by different factors and circumstances compared to the average traditional voter. For example older generations have memories of the colonial period and the early independence years, all of which shaped their political perspectives. The majority of those who grew up in the immediate post-independence era remember the glorious days of the 1980s and 1990s when there was much promise. Others however, particularly in the Matabeleland and the Midlands regions have sad memories of the 1980s Gukurahundi. The generation that keenly supported the MDC when it was formed in 1999 is now in the age group of late 30s and above. They are the generation that grew up in the 1980s and 1990s, began to see the excesses and weakness of the ZANU PF regime and sought change. However, a lot of these young, educated and urbane MDC supporters and sympathisers left the country in droves during the 2000s and they are now in the Diaspora. Meanwhile, older voters have been dying, too exacerbated by the harsh socio-economic environment.
All this means the electorate of 2018 will be quite different from the electorate of 2018. The issues too, will be different. You cannot continue to preach the same message that you have been preaching all these years. The generation that will be eligible to vote in 2018 is a completely new generation that has little in common with the generations above them. They have been shaped by completely different circumstances. They were toddlers during the more glorious period of the MDC, when it nearly overcame ZANU PF in the 2000 elections. They were young when the state unwittingly boosted Tsvangirai’s political cause when state security agents and police beat him and his colleagues on that dark day on 11 March 2007. It was a seminal moment which drew worldwide condemnation and gave Tsvangirai moral leverage in the battle against Mugabe. They were young too when Mugabe and ZANU PF were defeated in the first round of elections in 2008. These memories matter to the traditional MDC supporter, but they do not register as much to the younger generation.
It was because of these changing demographics and their impact on electoral politics that back in 2012, I wrote a paper for my then colleagues in the MDC which I entitled “The 5 year old voter”. It was a strategy paper which urged the party to focus greater attention on young first-time voters and prepare them for the 2013 elections. I called them the “5 year old voters” because they were new voters who were 5 years old in 1999 when the MDC was formed. They would be at least 18 and therefore, eligible to vote in the 2013 elections. My argument then was that they were a completely different demographic group of voters whose support at the ballot box could not be assumed or guaranteed. Indeed, their registration as voters could not be assumed. For a start, they needed to be encouraged to register. Their views and perspectives were likely to be different and our message needed to be carefully tailored to meet their needs and expectations. To do this it was necessary to understand the needs and expectations of these young voters. The message of “change” which had worked so well for the MDC in the past might not have the same relevance to this younger generation. Parties, like any other organisation, need to rebrand and repackage their message in response to the demands of the electorate. The response was lukewarm. Many in the party appreciated the importance of FTVs but the focus was too much on the traditional support base – those who thronged rallies and cheered the leadership.
Some NGOs like ERC undertook youth-focused campaigns in the run-up to the elections, but this could have been complemented by the parties. While the MDC attracted many young people to its rallies, it was also evident from snap surveys that a large number of them were not registered. The problem was that the show of support at rallies gave a misleading picture of electoral support as a large number of the unregistered supporters present at rallies were ineligible to vote on polling day. The big challenge is to convert rally support into electoral support, especially among the young people.
ZANU PF’s youth policy
ZANU PF has always understood the relevance of young people in electoral politics. From the early days of independence, there has always been a Cabinet post which represents youths’ affairs. A 25 year old Joice Mujuru was appointed Minister of Youth Sport and Recreation in Mugabe’s first Cabinet in 1980. In recent years, the youth ministry has been bound together with indigenisation and empowerment portfolios. The youth council brings together young people, mainly from ZANU PF. Youth funds have been set up ostensibly to assist young people with finance to start business projects. It was extensively used before the 2013 elections, to lure young people to ZANU PF. However, more that 90% of the loans from the youth fund were non-performing assets as most beneficiaries defaulted. In addition, the fund was also allegedly looted by senior party officials who were otherwise not eligible for loans under that scheme. In the early 2000s, under the leadership of Border Gezi, who was the political commissar of ZANU PF, the party and government launched a national youth programme. The youths who emerged from this programme, more commonly referred to as Border Gezi Youths, went on to become important political instruments for the ruling party during election campaigns.
In more recent weeks, again recognising the value of young people in electoral politics, Mugabe has started handing out urban plots of land to members of the Youth League in his party. These gifts represent a shift of focus from rural agricultural land to urban land which is more attractive to young people. Clearly, ZANU PF is using urban land in order to lure young voters.
It is against this background that the opposition parties need to do more to strategise in respect of young voters. Their policy frameworks must understand the needs and expectations of young voters. They must also lure and find space for young people drawn from all backgrounds. One of the things political parties do not do is to identify talent to incorporate in their leadership structures. Political parties grow and regenerate when the leadership conveyor belt is running. Going out to seek talent to beef up the party is strategic. In other countries, young leaders with potential are allocated safe seats so that they get into national institutions and learn state-craft. By the time they are in their forties, they will already be national leadership material. People tend to gravitate towards people who are like them or their generation. Young voters are more likely to respond better and more keenly to political parties which have younger people of all backgrounds in their leadership structures. With more young people in the leadership structures and playing a more prominent role in public affairs, it might ignite interest in politics among young people.
Social media
Another way to lure young people into politics and encourage them to participate in national affairs and voting is to make use of social media platforms. A study of information dissemination methods and interaction between ZEC, civic society and political parties on the one hand and young people on the other hand, shows a serious disconnect in modes and styles of communication. These institutions still rely largely on traditional media sources, such as print media, radio and television. They have so far failed to embrace social media platforms. Where they have, they have been very slow and inconsistent. However, the majority of young, urban youths who are the least likely to vote are avid users of social media. This is a quick and convenient way of disseminating information relevant to elections and party policies.
ZEC, election NGOs and political parties could reach more people and achieve more if they had more presence and visibility on social media platforms. It would also be a cheaper and faster way for them to disseminate and share relevant information. They could also have question and answer sessions where they would respond to enquiries from members of the public. A WhatsApp message from ZEC setting out requirements for voter registration will circulate more quickly and cheaply than an advert in a mainstream newspaper, to which a limited people have access. Overall, social media presents great opportunities to promote and enhance voter education without having to travel across the country. It would also catch the attention of young people who are regular users of social media platforms.
Voter registration
The big challenge as parties prepare for 2018 is to convert the numbers at the bottom of the population pyramid into voters. It is to ensure that the thousands of young men and women who attend rallies also present themselves at the polling stations. In order to do this, they must register to vote. The voter registration campaign must therefore start now, well before the 2018 election season starts. Political parties and NGOs must educate young people on why they should register and what is required for voter registration.
The biggest impediment however is ZEC, which has the constitutional obligation to register voters, maintain the voters roll and facilitate the inspection of the voters’ roll. One of the principal rules on voter registration is that it is a continuous process. A person who is eligible to vote must be able to walk into a ZEC office and apply for registration. However, since ZEC was given this responsibility, its performance has been dismal. It is failing to register voters on a continuous basis, citing financial constraints. The only occasions when ZEC has registered voters is when there are by-elections. The impact of delays in registering voters will be felt in the run-up to the election when ZEC opens registration for a limited window. It will not have adequate time or resources to carry out the process properly. This was the experience just before the 2013 elections, which even ZEC raised as a problem in its elections report. The result was that most people were excluded from the registration process and were therefore disenfranchised.
Since ZEC is pleading poverty for its failure to register voters, it is in the interests of political parties and other stakeholders to help source funding for ZEC to be able to undertake this important process. One of the great impediments to free and fair elections in Zimbabwe is the lack of a credible voters roll. This is one of the great opportunities to get it right, particularly since ZEC is talking about using bio-metric voter registration.
Alternatively, citizens, including political parties, have a right to approach the Constitutional Court with a declaration to the effect that ZEC’s failure to provide continuous registration is a breach of the Constitution and a violation of political rights under section … of the Constitution. The same application would also cite the government, in particular, the President and the Ministry of Finance for failing to provide financial resources to ZEC in terms of the budget in order to carry out its duties. The application would compel both the government to avail funds and ZEC to fulfil its constitutional obligations. A typical litigant in such a case would be a young person or a group of young persons who want to apply for registration but would have been denied by ZEC on the basis that there is no continuous registration due to lack of funds. This is a clear breach of the Constitution and must be declared as such. Such a young person would have a legitimate interest to protect and can aver that his or her constitutional rights are being violated by ZEC’s failure to uphold the Constitution. The case of Jealousy Mawarire v President Mugabe and others (2013) provides an important precedent for access to court by any person who feels aggrieved that a public officer or constitutional body is violating the Constitution and this has an impact on his or her constitutional rights.
Conclusion
If young voters knew the influence they potentially have in shaping the outcome of elections, they would participate more actively in politics, offering themselves as candidates and registering to vote and actually voting on polling day. As I have demonstrated in this article, population statistics demonstrate that young people constitute the majority of eligible voters, yet they are the most under-represented and the least likely to vote in elections. The elderly voters who constitute a small percentage of the population are actually over-represented and they participate more in the voting processes.
While it is true that there are problems with manipulation and rigging of elections, that system would not be able to sustain the large numbers of young voters should they exercise their rights to register and to vote. What most young people and political parties do not realise is that rigging is not as sophisticated and complex as they imagine. Indeed, the simple act of excluding young voters from the election process is one of the most effective mechanisms of manipulate the election. There are two ways of affecting the election result without invoking the instruments of violence: manipulating the vote-counting process as what happened in the March 2008 elections or simply preventing eligible voters from registering to vote or from actually voting on polling day. Probably the biggest scandal of Zimbabwe’s election process, as this article has demonstrated, is that the bulk of young voters are not registered to vote, prevented from registering – partly by their own weaknesses but also partly because the system is deliberately designed to exclude them from the voting process. This is what must be overcome. It is critical. There will be resistance but it must be overcome.
I have previously written about the futility of fishing from one’s own fishpond, instead of going out to the river to catch new fish. Political parties are comfortable fishing from the traditional fish ponds, their usual supporters, but they have made little effort to go out and catch new fish from the rivers and streams. Actually, the biggest river of them all sits at the base of the population pyramid – that is where millions of fish are swimming. The question is: do the political parties have enough will power and technique to become fishers of young men and women? Time, as ever the magician, will tell.
waMagaisa
Acknowledgement
I have received a lot of help from a number of people in writing this article. I would like to acknowledge the help I received from Kudzai Mubaiwa, Duduzile Nyirongo and Sibusisiwe Bhebhe who all kindly sourced information for me. The young people who volunteered their thoughts and views, thank you very much.
