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| author/source:Sunday Times (UK) |
| published:Sun 13-Jan-2002 |
| posted on this site:Sun 13-Jan-2002 |
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| Article Type : News |
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| "Forward with the People and Mugabe Forever", reads the president's election slogan. The voters do not agree. Only 23% say they want Robert Mugabe's rule to continue; a mere 17% say they believe his Zanu-PF party will remain in power "forever", writes RW Johnson |
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The findings emerged from a national survey of 1,900 Zimbabwean voters, which I carried out last November with Gallup. It was the sixth such survey I have conducted in two years, and it has been noticeable that, as the weight of repression has increased, so has the number of voters wishing to hide their opinions. It is now almost meaningless to ask voters directly whom they want to support. In Bulawayo, one of the strongholds of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), 55% refused to answer this question. The figure rose to 74% in Harare. Pollsters are used to assuming that most of those who say "don't know" are probably non-voters - but this is not true in Zimbabwe. Nearly 90% of those who did not answer nonetheless said they were determined to vote.
The bare statistics are that, among those willing to state a preference, Mugabe is ahead by five points. But we found a way of getting people to say which way they were really leaning. First we asked which were the main problems facing Zimbabwe. Unemployment, rising prices and the fear of famine predominated - with just 3% naming the land issue as the most important. We then asked whose fault these problems were, grouping the government, Zanu-PF and the war veterans on one side and those who blamed Mugabe scapegoats - including whites, the MDC, Britain, and the International Monetary Fund - on the other. Three-quarters of those questioned gave definite answers and anti-government responses outnumbered supportive ones by 63%-37%.
However, the government is attempting to do something unprecedented in a formal democracy: to terrify enough people into line to win. This is what happened in parliamentary elections in June 2000, when 13%-14% of voters admitted in our exit polls that they had switched their vote to Zanu PF under duress. The true figure was almost certainly higher. The question is whether Mugabe can do it again, and whether the world will accept the election as "free and fair". On the face of it, Mugabe looks bound to lose. When confronted with his statement that he will "never, ever allow the MDC to rule", only 13% agreed. Some 64% thought his land reforms would reduce food production. But repression is making voters sceptical that they will be able to vote the way they want. Only a third believed that "the will of the people will definitely be heard".
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