Electoral Authoritarian Regimes

Illiberal democracies or electoral authoritarian regimes, as we know them today, did not exist when Hirschman proposed his theory: a regime was either a liberal democracy or fully authoritarian. Electoral authoritarian regimes behave differently than pure dictatorships because they want the legitimacy that comes from elections. But they are not willing to lose power in those elections, so they expend a lot of effort manipulating the electoral system in their favor, violating democratic norms in the process. The massive exodus of those who would have supported the opposition strengthens their position. Anything that reduces turnout for the opposition bolsters the survival of an autocratic regime by reducing the amount of manipulation needed without going as far as banning elections altogether.

Death, Disease, and Exit

My second innovation is expanding exit to include death and disease, which Hirschman did not consider. The death of millions of voters in a short period of time has an impact on electoral outcomes. Dead people have no voice and cannot contribute to political discourse. Nevertheless, their absence has an impact on the politics of the countries they leave behind, especially when their votes could have influenced political outcomes. The HIV/AIDS pandemic came at one such crucial time in Zimbabwean politics, when it looked like the opposition might be able to defeat the ruling party. Furthermore, HIV/AIDS, like other terminal illnesses, demands a lot of attention from caregivers for an extended time. Most caregivers are left with little energy for themselves, let alone for politics. Caring for one individual requires at least two people dedicated to the task. In Zimbabwe, most of these were young women who sometimes had to quit work or school to become full-time caregivers. Fatigued caregivers often found themselves disconnected from the state and exited themselves from participation. Their voices became silent. Nonstrategic exit matters because it still directly impacts political outcomes. As I discuss later, exit from most nondemocracies continues to increase and requires study.

Exit and Voice

Third, while migrants lose their right to vote when they exit, sometimes that revitalizes their ability to use voice. Hirschman and others (Warren, Reference Warren2011) argued that voters who exit give up the option to use voice, but I argue they can retain their voice by participating in conversations via the internet, radio, or television. They may even have more voice after exit, given that authoritarian regimes work very hard to suppress voice by criminalizing protest and journalism. Citizens who go abroad can renew their use of voice by sharing their thoughts via the internet from places where such actions are not criminalized. The activities of exiled activists are well documented (Kuhlmann, Reference Kuhlmann2010; Mutambasere, Reference Mutambasere2022; Wellman, Reference Wellman2021). The use of voice encourages opposition supporters in the home country and might even translate to financial support from friendly regimes.

That said, the voices of exiles are not always an effective tool for regime change in illiberal democracies. The regime has no way to stop them from using their voice, but it can influence what exiles say by inducing fear for the safety of their family members who have not exited. It can also make it impossible for migrants to vote from outside the country and introduce laws that would lead to the arrest of those who speak against the government if they return. This might not suppress voice, but it keeps migrants away from political participation. Because the voices of those who have exited are not expressed in actual votes, it does not hurt the electoral chances of the regime.

Loyalty after Exit

My fourth modification to Hirschman is that exit does not mean the end of loyalty to the country. Along with using technology to comment on politics from abroad, those who emigrate can show loyalty and ties to their home country via remittances. However, these expressions of loyalty to the state bolster the regime by reducing the intensity of opposition supporters and by inadvertently funding the regime.

When voters exit by migration, they often do not completely cut their ties to their home country and family; they sometimes express loyalty as remittances. The money they send to family members can benefit the regime. While most remittances do not lead to large-scale development, they do reduce the number of aggrieved citizens who might otherwise protest the government because their basic needs have not been met. Remittances allow receivers to afford food, shelter, healthcare, and education, which are the issues that lead people to take to the streets. Furthermore, senders may also remit fear. This is especially true of mothers – and most Zimbabwean emigrants are women because they tend to work in health care and education, the professions with the most straightforward opportunities for migration (Hlatshwayo, Reference Hlatshwayo2019; Makina, Reference Makina, Johnstone, Berstein and de Villiers2008). They might encourage their children and other family members to stay out of politics, given that their primary needs have been met. Hirschman (Reference Hirschman1970) did not consider the loss of voice among those who remain in the country but disagree with the regime.

Authoritarian regimes can also directly benefit from those who have left. The regime might add a fee to receive remittances or even become the money transfer agency. This gives the government direct access to foreign currency, which is often difficult to come by in authoritarian countries. Regimes might also find ways to receive direct payment for the labor of citizens working abroad.

Summary

My theory is that large-scale voter exit provides a lifeline to authoritarian parties that would lose power if free elections were allowed. When voters are not physically present to vote for their preferred party, either because they have moved abroad or have died, their party will receive fewer votes. Authoritarian regimes benefit when the profile of those who exit matches the profile of those who support the opposition. When voters in certain areas exit en masse, it is easier for ruling parties to suppress support for the opposition. Voters who exit can use their voice, but without the right to vote from exile, they are disenfranchised, which benefits the regime. Other forms of exit come without voter choice – death, of course, but people who are sick for a long time or engaged in caregiving responsibilities are also less likely to participate in politics. They have effectively exited the system. Those who do not exit might still be limited in how they use their voice because the regime punishes the use of voice. The support of those who have exited but express loyalty to their families through remittances can also lead to the political exit of those families and offer economic benefits to the regime.

Historical Legacies

ZANU-PF’s party symbol, a clenched fist, sends a clear message to supporters and opponents alike that it is the party of the liberation struggle and the party to which Zimbabweans owe their independence. One of Mugabe’s famous sayings, which has become a mantra for ZANU-PF elites, is that an X on the ballot cannot undo the work of the gun. ZANU-PF claims full credit for freeing Zimbabwe from colonial rule and repeatedly tells voters it is the only party that can preserve the independence legacy. Mugabe, as one of the nation’s founding fathers, is credited with masterminding the diplomatic missions that led to the end of the civil war and White minority rule. ZANU-PF has perfected the art of reframing history to suit its interests (Kenrick, Reference Kenrick2016).

ZANU-PF’s behavior fits into Samuel Huntington’s theory of party survival, particularly in the immediate postindependence era. Huntington (Reference Huntington1968) argued the “stability of a modernizing political system depends on the strength of the political parties. A party, in turn, is strong to the extent that it has institutionalized mass support” (p. 408). He also argued that one-party regimes that emerge out of social revolutions or independence movements have a distinct aura of legitimacy: “The stability of a one-party system derives more from its origins than its character. It is usually the product of a nationalist or revolutionary movement. The more intense and prolonged the revolution is, the deeper and stronger the ideological commitment of its followers and the greater its political stability.”

Huntington’s observation has proved to be accurate for most postcolonial states. Many long-ruling political parties – for example, the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa, Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in Botswana, and the Indian National Congress in India – were rooted in independence or liberation politics. Voters in countries that experienced transitions from decades of colonial rule or other types of authoritarian rule are likely to show loyalty to the parties that helped the country transition to democratic rule. A brief history of Zimbabwe helps explain the depth of ZANU-PF’s claim to legitimacy.

From the beginning of settler colonialism in what was then called Rhodesia, Black people resisted White minority rule. In the early years, between 1896 and 1900, Blacks fought against Cecil Rhodes in the First Chimurenga (war of independence). They were underresourced, however, and the British had access to newer, more lethal weaponry. After their defeat, they continued to use methods like protests and boycotts to push back against White-minority authoritarianism. Rhodesian leaders responded with every brutal means of force available to them, legal and illegal. Black political parties and resistance movements could only exist underground. The first open opposition party, Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU), was founded in 1961 by young Black political actors from unions and academic circles. Its founding leaders included Ndabaningi Sithole, Herbert Chitepo, and Joshua Nkomo. Many of them played an active role in the government after independence, and many used their experiences in the liberation struggle to continue ZANU-PF’s hold on power.

In 1962, Ian Smith’s Rhodesian government banned ZAPU, accusing it of militarism. Most of its members were forced into exile or jailed, and their operations went underground. Personality differences and the constant harassment from Rhodesian officials caused ZANU to split from ZAPU in 1963. Nkomo became the leader of ZAPU. Even though ZAPU had many leaders and members from Mashonaland, most people assumed it was a Ndebele faction because Nkomo was from Matebeleland and the party headquarters was located there. Sithole, Chitepo, Edgar Tekere, and Mugabe founded ZANU. Sithole was elected president, and Mugabe served as the secretary general. In the rewriting of national memory essential for elevating Mugabe, ZANU is considered the main liberation struggle party and Mugabe the most important founding member (Dombo, Reference Dombo2019). This historicization legitimated his stay in power for as long as he did. After Mugabe was ousted in 2017, his former comrades discounted his military role by claiming that he had been bookish and that it was, in fact, Emmerson Mnangagwa who was at the front lines. There is not much historical text placing Mnangagwa among the leaders of either ZAPU or ZANU at their founding.

Immediately following the formation of ZANU in 1963, Mugabe and many of ZANU’s cofounders were arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison for political activism. Chitepo fled the country before Rhodesians could arrest him; he served as party leader from exile until his 1974 assassination in Zambia. After Chitepo’s death, Mugabe was elected party leader. The arrests forced both ZANU and ZAPU to become more militant. Their efforts were bolstered by China, Russia, North Korea, and newly independent African states; they culminated in the Second Chimurenga between 1967 and 1979.

As the war raged in 1979, Smith struck a deal with Abel Muzorewa to try to sideline ZANU and ZAPU. Muzorewa led a small party that was more amenable to a transitional government with the White Rhodesians and was an opponent of military tactics. Their agreement in 1979 to form Zimbabwe-Rhodesia was rejected by ZANU and ZAPU leaders, who continued to fight for universal suffrage and Black majority rule.

After the Muzorewa agreement failed, the various factional leaders, including ZAPU’s Nkomo, ZANU’s Mugabe, and the Rhodesian Front’s Smith, traveled to London to sign the Lancaster House Agreement. This brought the war to an end. Mugabe and the ZANU-PF have taken every opportunity to remind Zimbabweans that had they not made the trek to London, independence would not have been achieved.

In December 1979, Mugabe’s delegation, which included Nkomo, signed a peace agreement at Lancaster House in London. The Lancaster Agreement voided the 1965 declaration of independence, so Zimbabwe was once again a colony of Britain until the first universal elections were held in 1980. Mugabe’s ZANU won the majority of votes in the 1980 election, which was considered free and fair (BBC, 1980). In his inaugural speech as prime minister, Mugabe promised to work toward peace and democracy. Mugabe said he would create room for political actors from the opposition, including White Rhodesians. While Black Zimbabweans celebrated across ethnic and tribal lines, White Rhodesians were more apprehensive. About 60,000 White Zimbabweans left the country and moved to the United Kingdom (Brownell, Reference Brownell2008). This first wave of outward migration was critical to muffling the voices of White minorities in Zimbabwe’s politics after independence. Most of those who left had been politically active and feared retribution from ZANU leadership. While this period is beyond the scope of this book, their departure supports my theory of how exit supports electoral authoritarian regimes.

To this day, ZANU-PF elites emphasize their liberation credentials. ZANU-PF referred to the farm takeover period in the early 2000s as the Third Chimurenga. ZANU-PF elites, army generals, and war veterans contrasted their leadership with that of the MDC opposition, many of whom were too young to have gone to war. By 2017, other elites within ZANU-PF considered Mugabe to have been compromised by his wife and by other actors who had no war credentials. Their ouster of Mugabe in the 2017 coup was justified as a necessary step to restoring the national legacy.

Weaponization of Identity for Political Gain

In the 1980 elections, only three political parties won any of the eighty parliamentary seats (out of 100) allocated to Black Zimbabweans. Mugabe’s ZANU-PF emerged as the clear winner, with 63 percent of the votes and fifty-seven seats. Nkomo’s PF-ZAPU came second with 24 percent of the vote and twenty seats, and Muzorewa’s United National African Council (UANC) came third with only 8 percent of the vote and three scattered seats. The ZANU-PF won in its Shona strongholds of Mashonaland East, Central, and West; Victoria (now Masvingo); and Manicaland, where it won 71–87 percent of the vote in each constituency. PF-ZAPU’s wins were in its base in Matebeleland, in Midlands, and in the southern parts of the country.

Although ZANU-PF came out of independence as the ruling party, opposition remained, especially in the Matebeleland region where Joshua Nkomo, the head of ZAPU, resided. A paramilitary created by Mnangagwa, then minister of state, targeted ethnic Ndebeles and accused them of disloyalty. This developed into a genocide known as Gukurahundi that killed over 20,000 ethnic Ndebele and some Shona allies (Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace & Legal Resources Foundation in Harare, 2008). As violence escalated, the state defended its position by arguing that the region was infiltrated by dissidents who wanted to destabilize independence. No evidence of dissidents in the region ever came to light. Nkomo, the leader of PF-ZAPU, faced many incidents of violence, including the infamous bombing of his house in Bulawayo (J. Alexander, Reference Alexander2021).

A common explanation for voting behavior and party survival in Africa is the ethnicization of African politics. Ethnic voting literature has roots in Horowitz’s 1985 seminal Ethnic Groups in Conflict. Horowitz argued that voters in multiethnic countries seek affirmation of self-worth through their identities as members of ethnic groups. Ferree (Reference Ferree2006) described elections in newly democratizing African states as nothing more than an ethnic census. This view of voting assumes people’s ethnic allegiances are primordial and nonnegotiable. In this view, voters will sometimes vote against their individual interests to preserve group interests (Ferree, Reference Ferree2006).

More recent literature on the role of ethnicity in elections is moving away from this rigid explanation to a more constructivist understanding of voting behavior. This approach suggests that ethnicity is used by politicians and voters like any other political tool and, as such, is subject to change and manipulation (Basedau et al., Reference Basedau, Erdmann and Mehler2007). Ethnic preferences interact with voter evaluations of the incumbent party’s performance on the economy and policy (Ferree, Reference Ferree2006), delivery on promises (Kandeh, Reference Kandeh2003), and other factors such as violence and intimidation (Bratton & Kimenyi, Reference Bratton and Kimenyi2008). This view of ethnicity is more amenable to theories of voting behavior outside Africa.

Sociological approaches to voting argue “a person thinks politically as she is social” (Lazarsfeld et al., Reference Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet1968, p. 27). This is consistent with ethnic voting because people tend to be socialized in communities of coethnics (Habyarimana et al., Reference Habyarimana, Humphreys, Posner and Weinstein2007). The same holds for the macro-sociological cleavage approach (Erdmann, Reference Erdmann2007; Lipset & Rokkan, Reference Lipset and Rokkan1967) or for a sociopsychological approach that conceptualizes party identification and voting preferences as products of social ties (Dalton et al., Reference Dalton, McAllister, Wattenberg, Dalton and Wattenberg2000, pp. 20–21). Finally, ethnic voting fits neatly under the rational voter model (Aldrich, Reference Aldrich1993; Downs, Reference Downs1957; Fiorina, Reference Fiorina1978), because voting for a coethnic candidate may serve a voter’s interests. Lindberg and Morrison (Reference Lindberg and Morrison2008) showed that in Ghana and elsewhere, ethnic voting is tied to expected benefits that a coethnic candidate might deliver once in office. In Zambia and Kenya, voters tend to choose coethnics if they fear other voters will do the same (Bogaards, Reference Bogaards, Basedau, Erdmann and Mehler2007; Bratton & Kimenyi, Reference Bratton and Kimenyi2008; D. J. Young, Reference Young2009). Bratton and Kimenyi (Reference Bratton and Kimenyi2008) found that voting in Kenyan elections remains highly ethnic even though, at an individual level, most voters do not identify in ethnic terms or see a candidate’s ethnicity as a primary motivator for their vote. They also found that even though voters might want to vote in nonidentity terms, they tend not to do so because they fear other ethnic groups will not do the same. Although voters see themselves as not being biased against other ethnic groups, they see those groups as biased against them. Thus, voters fear that if they do not vote along ethnic lines, they will lose out due to ethnic favoritism (Posner, Reference Posner2005, p. 104).

Zimbabwean ethnic politics is consistent with traditional views on the ethnicization of politics, though it is more subtle. Since independence, the status of racial minorities in Zimbabwe has been precarious. White Zimbabweans were slowly pushed out of politics unless they opted to join the ruling party. The land reform and various citizenship policies forced White minorities and others with migrant roots to leave the country. These measures for forced exit were violent in different ways. Whenever ZANU-PF is politically vulnerable, it unleashes violence on different subgroups. The four most dominant ethnic groups in Zimbabwe are the Shona and Ndebele, the two main Black ethnic groups (about 95 percent of the population), and Whites and Asians, who combine to make up 5 percent. Zimbabwe has never had a non-Shona president and is unlikely to do so.

After the 1983 genocide and the unification of ZAPU and ZANU, the government created a second vice president position. Unofficially, it is accepted that the position is reserved for a senior former ZAPU member who has become well entrenched within ZANU-PF. The forced unification of ZAPU and ZANU was supposed to address ethnic tensions, but this has not been entirely successful, as Mugabe rewarded coethnics with lucrative positions. The Matebeleland region remains one of the most underdeveloped areas in the country. Still, even the most repressive treatment of ethnic minorities has not sustained ZANU-PF rule. The opposition grew its strongest roots in Matebeleland, and it has received significant financial support from the White community.

Maintaining Elite Unity

The bombing of Nkomo’s house in Bulawayo was a catalyst for the formation of ZANU (PF), a union of ZANU-PF and PF-ZAPU. While the Matebeleland genocide was occurring, Mugabe had pushed for a one-party state within the ZANU party structure (Shaw Reference Shaw1986). Mugabe was increasingly aware that ZANU could not afford to have a war raging on, yet he did not want to have an opposition party. In the second elections in 1985, ZANU-PF gained 77 percent of the vote and sixty-four seats and PF-ZAPU won only fifteen seats. UANC won less than 2 percent of the vote and no seats, but Sithole regained his hometown seat in Chipinge with 1 percent of the national vote (Makumbe, Reference Makumbe2006).

In 1986, Mugabe reached out to a weary Nkomo and convinced him they should unite to form ZANU (PF). The new party guaranteed political stability for both Nkomo and Mugabe, but Mugabe’s promise of unity was short-lived for Nkomo’s supporters in the South. Mugabe and ZANU were not content to have an active opposition, an attitude that continues to this day. Mugabe despised Nkomo, who remained popular and served as vice president until his death in 1999, and sought to destroy him and his followers. The seeds for antiopposition politics had been planted early, and ZANU utilized the tools it had inherited from White minority rule to suppress the voice of anyone who disagreed.

ZANU-PF followed Riker’s (Reference Riker1976) model to ensure party dominance. As the incumbent party, it could divide and conquer by sticking to the center and splitting challengers to the left and the right. In the politics of developing nations, the ideological lines are not clear-cut, and parties tend to share many of the same values. However, ruling parties can divide the opposition by promising defectors benefits that newer and poorer parties cannot offer. Magaloni (Reference Magaloni2006) found this to be true for elite unity and mobilization within Mexico’s Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI). The PRI was able to coopt smaller parties and independent elites and create a supersize coalition.

This cooption is unusual in Africa, where parties tend to be wary of bringing opponents into their fold, likely because of a history of coups on the continent. For example, even when faced with growing opposition and defections, South Africa’s ANC has not made any effort to reach out to opponents. If anything, the ANC seems committed to purging anyone who is not toeing the party line. Similarly, ZANU-PF functions in a very top-down process: older party loyalists and founders remain at the top of the food chain, and there is not much room for new people. Geddes (Reference Geddes1999) argued that hegemonic parties survive because they are immune to elite splitting. Elites within the regime realize there are gains to be made from staying in a unified front. She argued:

The 1986 unification between Nkomo and Mugabe eliminated the largest opposition. Mugabe felt confident that he could push forward with his demands for a one-party state. The remaining opposition, led by former Mugabe ally Tekere, had substantial support in urban areas. Mugabe was wary of Tekere’s growing popularity among urbanites. In the lead-up to the 1990 elections and before the multipartyism mandate’s expiration, Mugabe renewed his demands for a one-party state. In the 1990 election, ZANU-PF won the majority of seats, 116 of 150, but turnout was low and there were rumors of discontent within the ruling party. Now that the mandate for multipartyism had expired and Mugabe had a two-thirds majority, he asserted ZANU-PF’s electoral victory was “a mandate for all our policies, including one-party rule.” It was not.

The call for a one-party state was not new. At the first national congress in 1984, Mugabe had said, “With such a mandate, we shall no doubt proceed toward the full attainment of our political goals and the establishment of a one-party state and the fulfillment of a socialist revolution” (Cowell, Reference Cowell1984, p. 1). However, unlike in neighboring Zambia and Malawi, Mugabe could not implement his plans because of a clause in the constitution drawn up at independence in 1980 that committed Zimbabwe to retain a multiparty system for ten years. That clause also reserved 20 percent of the parliamentary seats to the White minority, who had to give 100 percent support for any change in the constitution before 1987 and 70 percent support between 1987 and 1990 (Shaw, Reference Shaw1986). Essentially, Mugabe’s hands were tied. Mugabe could not ignore the constitution because he was very committed to the public appearance of being democratic. The economy and his status with Western actors were also at stake. Shortly after independence, Mugabe had been given numerous honors, including a state visit with US President Jimmy Carter and a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth that was revoked in 2008 (New York Times, 2008). Mugabe was also given numerous honorary doctoral degrees, including one from the University of Edinburgh that was revoked in 2019 (Campsie, Reference Campsie2019). Mugabe was happy to use the rhetoric of a one-party state to keep his party cadre happy, but he had no real intention of following through within the first ten years of independence.

Leaders of other countries have manipulated constitutions and other democratic institutions to extend their rule, including shifting to presidentialism, creating a one-party state, and using emergency decrees. After independence, African leaders pushed to shift from a parliamentary to a presidential system, which is more amenable to centralizing power around a single leader (Van de Walle, Reference Van de Walle2003). A government centered on the presidency often finds it easier to distribute patronage. For example, during the Mwai Kibaki presidency, one in six Kenyan civil servants worked directly for the president’s office. The president’s office had the power to fire and hire new loyalists (Opalo, Reference Opalo2011).

In that postindependence era, most African states shifted to one-party states and eliminated opposition parties. Leaders pushing for one-party governments argued that newly independent states were too fragile to survive the tensions that come with multipartyism. The shift to a one-party state worked for three decades in a few countries, such as Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, and Malawi (Bamfo, Reference Bamfo2005; Venter, Reference Venter and Wiseman2002). Their leaders were able to suppress opposition and keep their dominance. These ruling parties were forced to open political space for multiparty elections because of increased citizen demands and demands from the World Bank during the structural adjustment era. They all lost power when they did so. In West Africa, the strategy to shift to one-party governance never worked. In almost all cases, including Kwame Nkrumah’s Ghana, one-party regimes were overthrown by a military junta.

As an alternative to setting up a one-party state, leaders seeking to extend their time in office have pushed for amendments to their countries’ constitutions. Between 2000 and 2018, over forty-six attempts in twenty-eight countries were made to extend presidential term limits. A recent study by Reyntjens (Reference Reyntjens2020) found four ways term limits have been manipulated. Leaders in Guinea (2001), Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC; 2002 and 2016), Rwanda (2003), Burundi (2015), and South Sudan (2018) delayed elections to extend their time in office. Other leaders changed the number of terms one could hold, as in DRC (2015). When a new constitution was introduced, such as in Zimbabwe (2013) and Rwanda (2015), incumbents reset the clock on their rule. Finally, several countries removed term limits altogether: Guinea (2001), Togo (2002), Tunisia (2002), Gabon (2003), Chad (2005), Uganda (2005), Algeria (2008), Cameroon (2008), Niger (2009), and Djibouti (2010).

Mugabe was unable to eliminate the opposition. Although suppressed and facing arrests and abuse, new activists emerged. Some ZANU-PF elites like Margaret Dongo defected, running as an independent and thus providing a small but critical opposition voice (Compagnon, Reference Compagnon2000). The roots of opposition planted by Nkomo grew until the early 2000s. As years passed since independence and the economy continued to fail, even the most carefully crafted message about party unity did not insulate ZANU-PF from defections and small electoral losses. It was under the backdrop of these defections and citizen protests that the main opposition, the MDC, was founded by a group of young professionals and activists in 1999. Since then, ZANU-PF has been fighting for its survival against MDC.

Performance Legitimacy

Until the mid-1990s, however, ZANU-PF presided over economic growth. Steady growth in the middle class and widespread provision of affordable health care and education, especially in rural areas, certainly contributed to its survival. Perhaps the praise was inflated and not entirely deserved, but it was relative. South Africa was ruled by apartheid, Mozambique was caught up in a protracted civil war, and Zambia’s economy had all but collapsed.

This approach to explaining regime survival is known as performance legitimacy: undemocratic regimes retain popular support by implementing good, sound policies that lead to economic growth (Hansen, Reference Hansen1994). Scholars and practitioners have used this approach to explain the survival of hegemonic parties in Asia’s economic tigers – Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore – where the economy grew exceptionally well under one-party rule. Intuitively, the argument makes sense: parties should retain power when the economy improves and should collapse when the economy fails. There is empirical evidence of this from parties such as the United Malays National Organization in Malaysia, the People’s Action Party in Singapore, the Liberal Democratic Party in Japan, and the BDP in Botswana. Each of these presided over sustained economic growth. When the economy is doing well, voters will often reward the incumbent party by voting for them again and again.

Lack of economic growth corresponds to losing political power. Before its demise at the hands of the MMD, the United National Independence Party (UNIP) governed Zambia from 1964 to 1991. Under Kaunda’s leadership, Zambia had instituted one-party rule in the mid-1970s and banned all opposition political activities. A combination of bad economic policies, the 1980s global economic crisis, and Zambia’s dependency on copper saw the country’s economy decline at an alarming rate. Kaunda opposed capitalism, supporting a homegrown form of socialism that he called “humanism” (Maroleng, Reference Maroleng2004). UNIP sponsored expensive spending commitments that ran the economy further into the ground. To make up for its overspending, UNIP borrowed heavily from international agencies. By 1990, Zambia owed over $7 billion, making it the most indebted country in the world (Chikalipah, Reference Chikalipah2021). UNIP faced increasing public discontent, riots, strikes, and demonstrations from labor and student groups. These all but paralyzed the already weakened economy. The Zambia Congress of Trade Unions quickly asserted itself in the political arena, challenging the one-party, one-state policy, and forcing UNIP to loosen its grip on power and open up political space (Posner, Reference Posner2007). A combination of international and local demands and the joint opposition forces led to the ouster of UNIP in the 1990 elections.

Long-term hegemonic rule accompanied by economic failure is quite common. The puzzle is that ZANU-PF could withstand the international and domestic pressures that led to the failures of similar parties in Zambia and Malawi. By the mid-1990s, the Zimbabwean economy, which had been slowly declining, finally plummeted after the government issued unbudgeted compensation to the war veterans (Ndlela, Reference Ndlela2011). In 1997, Harare was rife with civil servant strikes and riots headed by then-trade union leader Tsvangirai. That same year, ZANU-PF faced its first public outcry against their decision to send Zimbabwean troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to shore up Laurent Kabila’s government against rebels. The two-year military intervention cost Zimbabwe an estimated $200 million at a time when its economy was already depressed (UN News Report, 2000). Zimbabweans argued that their government did not have the money and resources for the mission. There was also concern with the high number of Zimbabwean casualties in the war.

Since 2000, ZANU-PF has presided over the worst economic crisis since Germany’s hyperinflation after the First World War. In 2005, I took a taxi into the city center and paid ZWD 5,000. On my return home about six hours later, the same ride was ZWD 15,000. I had to walk halfway home. This was not the worst of it. By 2008, inflation hit over 9.6 billion percent per month, with year-over-year inflation reaching an astounding 89.7 sextillion percent. In 2022, crippling inflation returned and was hovering at nearly 200 percent. In 2021, the fare for a taxi ride was ZWD 50 (the currency was devalued in 2016, 2018, and 2020). By June 2022, the cost had skyrocketed to ZWD 240 and continued to increase. In response to the high cost of living, citizens protested. Such protests and citizen anger would be enough to topple stronger regimes elsewhere, yet the ruling party in Zimbabwe survived.

Vote Buying and Patronage

In 1997, as the Zimbabwean economy began its decline, war veterans made public their demands for remuneration for war-related injuries and demanded compensation in the form of land and money. In November 1997, the government responded to their demands by initiating pension payouts of up to ZWD 50,000 ($4,500 at the time; Kanyenze et al., Reference Kanyenze, Chitambara and Tyson2017). The estimated cost of the payout was about $4 billion, which was ten times Zimbabwe’s 1997 budget. In addition, the war veterans were promised a ZWD 2,000 ($165) monthly income. Mugabe went on a national tour defending the release of the funds, even as critics, including members of parliament from his party, argued the money had not been budgeted. Mugabe said the cost would be covered by additional taxes (Reuters, 1997). The business and professional communities protested the payouts. The call for payouts provided common ground for White and Black urbanites who had until then largely stayed out of politics.

The payouts served as a final nail in the coffin for the Zimbabwean economy. The economy was struggling to recover from the negative effects of the World Bank’s Economic Structural Adjustment Program and from corruption and banking scandals. On the day Mugabe announced the payouts, the Zimbabwean dollar fell from $11 to $21 and the country experienced its first national power blackout (A. Meldrum, Reference Meldrum2006). By the end of the year, the Zimbabwean dollar had lost 75.5 percent of its value and the stock market had crashed by 46 percent. Civil society activism became more robust after the war veteran payouts debacle (Dorman, Reference Dorman2016).

Prior to the November payouts, the war veterans had laid out a series of demands, including hospital and school fees coverage for their families and government redistribution of land. The payouts did little to ameliorate tensions between war veterans and the ruling party. The ruling party leaders increasingly became agitated with the War Veterans Association, which was now openly hostile toward ZANU-PF. In 1999, the trial of Chenjerai Hunzvi, who was accused of fraud, dominated newspaper headlines and made public the tensions between party elites and the war veterans (Mail & Gurdian, 2000). The ruling party could not afford to fight two battles, one with the rising MDC and another with the war veterans, so it sided with the latter. Hunzvi was acquitted, which marked the beginning of the brutal land reform campaign that would become the center of ZANU-PF’s messaging for a decade. Hunzvi led the initial farm grabs in 1999, and the government took over the process in 2000. The government tried but largely failed to formalize the equitable redistribution of farmland (Dorman, Reference Dorman2016).

The issue of land reform was not new. Land had played a critical role in the 1979 Lancaster House agreements. According to the agreements, the British government would give financial assistance to the new government to initiate land reform after a ten-year grace period. The Margaret Thatcher government had been primarily interested in protecting the property of the White minority. At Lancaster, British Foreign Minister Peter Carrington assured liberation struggle leaders that the British government would enlist the help of its allies to secure the money needed for land redistribution. Carrington assured the delegation that the “future government would be able to appeal to the international community for help in funding acquisition of land for agricultural settlement” (McGreal, Reference McGreal2002). This calmed the fears of the leaders, especially Mugabe, who argued that the “assurances (given in the Lancaster Agreement) go a long way in allaying the great concern we have over the whole land question arising from the great need our people have for land and our commitment to satisfy that need when in government” (McGreal, Reference McGreal2002).

During the first decade after independence, the new government was limited in what they could do to redistribute land because of the constitutional mandate that reform could not be initiated in the first ten years after independence. By the time the mandate expired, neither the government nor the White farmers took land reform seriously because the agriculture sector was bringing in a lot of revenue for the country. It seems there was an unwritten agreement between the new government and White farmers: the Blacks would run the government while the Whites would run the economy. This implicit compromise kept everyone happy until the late 1990s.

By then, time appeared to have slipped away from both the British and Zimbabwean leaders. The promise to give land to millions of poor Blacks hung in the air as the economy contracted. The demand for land caught the government by surprise. At independence in 1980, over 15 million hectares of land were devoted to commercial farming, and the White minority owned almost all of it. The first phase of land redistribution was a gradual process that started in the mid-1990s, when a little over three million hectares were redistributed. The amount of White-owned commercial land (about 12 million hectares) quickly declined after 2000, when the government allocated 4,500 hectares to new farmers, for a total of up to 7.6 million hectares (Scoones et al., Reference Scoones, Marongwe, Mavedzenge, Murimbarimba, Mahenehene and Sukume2010). The country experienced a dramatic shift from large-scale farming to smaller farms focused on mixed production that had very low levels of capitalization. The decline in agricultural production led to an increased need for imported foods and a decline in national exports, which negatively affected the nation’s GDP. Between 2001 and 2010, GDP growth never made it above 10 percent. It was as low as –18 percent in 2003 and 2008 (World Bank Group, n.d.).

In 2001, the government had agreed to end land invasions in exchange for British funds to finance a more gradual and tempered land reform program, but the invasions continued. White farmers returned to politics by providing financial support that enabled the formation of the MDC. The return of White voters into active politics threatened to reduce ZANU-PF’s dominance of the rural vote. After 2000, ZANU-PF invested in extensive tools to manipulate election outcomes.

African politicians are often accused of engaging in vote buying or patronage politics (Arriola, Reference Arriola2009; Bratton & Van de Walle, Reference Bratton and Van de Walle1994; Lindberg, Reference Lindberg2006; Omotola, Reference Omotola2011; Van de Walle, Reference Van de Walle, Kitschelt and Wilkinson2007; Vicente & Wantchekon, Reference Vicente and Wantchekon2009; Wantchekon, Reference Wantchekon2003; D. J. Young, Reference Young2009). The two are often used interchangeably, but they mean different things. Sometimes African politicians blatantly offer money in exchange for votes (Bratton et al., Reference Bratton, Bhavnani and Chen2012; Collier & Vicente, Reference Collier and Vicente2012); at other times, instead of cash, politicians promise to deliver gifts, goods, and services to voters who support them (Omotola, Reference Omotola2011; Wantchekon, Reference Wantchekon2003). Recent literature in the field shows that although patronage politics is vital, vote buying in terms of a vote for actual cash exchange is very rare. However, African voters do expect more personal gifts and attention from their representatives than do voters in more developed democracies (Arriola, Reference Arriola2009; Basedau et al., Reference Basedau, Erdmann and Mehler2007; Carlson, Reference Carlson2010). Like most ruling parties in the region, ZANU-PF has benefited from having control over the state purse. This has enabled them to deliver goods and services to voters, especially during election season. For example, ZANU-PF has consistently delivered fertilizers and other farming equipment to their rural voters.

By the mid-2000s, Zimbabwe could no longer afford to feed its people or import grain. Zimbabweans were depending on aid for every basic commodity. Once-booming industries were closed. Following the land reform initiative, the government banned foreign transactions in 2000. It became illegal for businesses to deal with foreign currency without prior approval from the government. This led to a further decline in business operations and industries as foreign companies fled. At the height of Zimbabwe’s crisis between 2008 and 2010, Human Rights Watch reported that the food deficit in Zimbabwe had affected an estimated 4.1 million people. A drought worsened the food crisis, so most rural provinces did not have good harvests during that time, especially in the arid regions of Matebeleland. In May 2008, the government, via the Ministry of Social Welfare, issued a directive prohibiting international aid agencies from distributing food in a few rural provinces, including the ZANU-PF stronghold of Masvingo. The government argued that international agencies were using food to buy votes for the opposition, yet many rural Zimbabweans would have died without donor food. The government blamed food shortages on the drought, the MDC, and Western sanctions. Later, the government demanded that donor agencies give the food to their ministries, which then distributed the food.

Under the doctrine of a Third Chimurenga, Mugabe’s regime introduced indigenization policies that came into effect in 2008 (Scoones et al., Reference Scoones, Marongwe, Mavedzenge, Murimbarimba, Mahenehene and Sukume2010). The Indigenization and Empowerment Act, officially signed into law on March 7, 2008, required all foreign-owned companies to offer at least 51 percent of their shares to indigenous Zimbabweans (Mugabe, Reference Mugabe2001).Footnote ² Foreign investors in Zimbabwe spoke out against the law, and a fair number withdrew their businesses. Market analysts worldwide expressed their outrage and concern over the policy, arguing the act would “effectively seal Zimbabwe’s fate as a pariah to international capital” (Tupy, Reference Tupy2008). Marian Tupy, a Cato Institute policy analyst, condemned the law even more strongly as “yet another step on Zimbabwe’s road to economic suicide” that would “expropriate non-Black owners, while providing the ZANU-PF elite with a new source of income. The biggest victims of the Orwellian measure … will be the Black majority” (Zeldin, Reference Zeldin2008).

At the start of the 2012 campaign season, ZANU-PF strategically delivered seed grain to rural voters in packaging engraved with ZANU-PF symbols. The strategy was met with outcries of injustice and accusations of vote buying from opposition leaders, who argued ZANU-PF was using state funds for campaign purposes (Mwonzora & Mandikwaza, Reference Mwonzora and Mandikwaza2019). The survival of ZANU-PF can be explained in part by the party’s ability to consistently deliver patronage to its supporters. However, patronage delivery does not fully explain why voters remained loyal even when the party could not deliver such patronage.

Election Manipulation

The last resort for an authoritarian regime seeking to remain in power while maintaining a façade of democracy is to distort election outcomes. Well-documented evidence shows ZANU-PF routinely engaged in election fraud to maintain its electoral wins. In Zimbabwe, most electoral fraud happens before the election (Chigora & Nciizah, Reference Chigora and Nciizah2007). The ruling party manipulates the activities of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the only body with the constitutional mandate to manage Zimbabwean elections. ZANU-PF, via its control of ZEC, disenfranchises opposition voters via constant gerrymandering, unfair and unequal coverage of political parties on state media, unequal distribution of voting material materials, and legislation that criminalizes the opposition’s political participation. While reports from local and international observers indicate that ballot counting has been relatively clean,Footnote ³ Dorman (Reference Dorman2005) found there are often irregularities in vote counting that must not be ignored. Low levels of ballot fraud and the absence of actual ballot stuffing can be explained by the fact that all the Zimbabwean elections since 2000 have been high stakes and have drawn the attention of local political actors, civil society, and international observers. In such elections, ruling parties must seek other strategies to retain power (Laakso, Reference Laakso2002).

Around the world, the quality of elections appears to be in decline as authoritarian regimes continue to find creative ways to rig elections in their favor. Electoral fraud includes a myriad of clandestine and illegal efforts to change electoral outcomes, often done in favor of the incumbent. Cheeseman and Klaas (Reference Cheeseman and Klaas2018) have categorized six ways that election manipulation can occur: gerrymandering, vote buying, repression, hacking, ballot stuffing, and international endorsements. In Zimbabwe, the government utilizes most of them clandestine ways. The main visible form of election manipulation is vote buying, as discussed in the next subsection.

All long-serving parties employ some of these tactics some of the time. A famous example of electoral hacking occurred in Mexico’s 1988 election, when the long-ruling PRI was returned to office with a slim majority of 50.7 percent after computers malfunctioned (Magaloni, Reference Magaloni2006). Similarly, it took over a month before the ZEC released the 2008 election results showing that although the incumbent ZANU-PF had finished second, the opposition had not garnered enough votes to prevent a runoff. The runoff was a bloody and violent affair that saw Mugabe win over 90 percent of the vote.

Preelection ballot staffing is now more common than postelection rigging methods. In Rwanda, like in Russia, the incumbent always wins with over 90 percent of the vote. Experts see this as evidence of ballot stuffing (Cheeseman & Klaas, Reference Cheeseman and Klaas2018). Leaders who win with such large margins either have numbers prematched to the outcomes they want or add votes during the elections. In cases like Rwanda and Russia, there is a lot of fear of the incumbent and low trust in the judicial system, so opponents are unlikely to seek redress in the courts. Electoral manipulation has been a major fixture in Zimbabwean politics and yet even this alone is not enough to explain the survival of ZANU-PF.