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President Mugabe

A Pan-African think tank, Afrobarometer stated the obvious when it said in its most recent survey that President Mugabe is trusted by two thirds of the local adult population.

The study was carried out between January 28 and February 10 this year by generally pro-opposition Mass Public Opinion Institute for the South African think tank Afrobarometer. It surveyed a sample of 1 200 adult citizens from all the country’s 10 provinces. Fifty five percent of urban dwellers and 69 percent support from the rural population said they trusted the President.  His trust is higher among women (65 percent) than men (62 percent).

“Almost two-thirds of adult Zimbabweans (64 percent) trust President Mugabe,” the study established. “There is more trust for the President in rural areas (69 percent) than urban centres (55 percent). It is also important to note that the public trust the President (64 percent) more than they do the ruling party, Zanu-PF (56 percent).  Half of adult Zimbabweans (50 percent) reported that they trust the electoral management body, that is, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. Masvingo province has the highest proportion of adult Zimbabweans (67 percent) who claim that they trust it ‘somewhat’ or quite ‘a lot’ with Bulawayo province having the least trust (28 percent).”

Adults are generally those eligible to vote and one would expect that they are also registered to do so.  The element of trust is very important in politics and we would not expect someone who trusts a politician while not being that politician’s supporter.  We would also not expect such a person, in election time, not to then vote for that politician.

Therefore, the findings of the Afrobarometer survey should serve as an indication of possible voting trends come election time, and the next election in this country is due next year.  If conditions remain as they were when the study was carried out, chances are high that around two thirds of the adult population, or those registered to vote and proceed to do so, would endorse President Mugabe.

We agree with Afrobarometer’s findings which are consistent with results of previous surveys on President Mugabe and the opposition. The trust is earned because the President has shown over the years to be a clean politician who is genuinely committed to serving his people.  He does not waver on his pro-people disposition, his party and Government’s policies and programmes even when he faces opposition.

He is leading a party, Zanu-PF and Government that has delivered the land to the people, he is leading a party and Government that is delivering the economy to the people, he denounces and acts on corruption, he is working hard to deliver social services to the people and so on.  The President has over the years been working for the people which is why the people trust him and have restated this at every election since 1980.

The recent Afrobarometer findings are thus stating what everyone knows, something which is however welcome and must be mentioned all the time.

The findings will certainly send the opposition privately quaking in their boots but publicly wearing brave faces.  It is most revealing that the Afrobarometer study also says two-thirds of adult Zimbabweans have lost trust in opposition political parties versus 32 percent who still trust them.

MDC-T president, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and his opposition colleagues have shown that they are greedy figures who are led by self-interest not public-interest.  They seek personal glory, they seek money as what we were told recently by Mr Tsvangirai’s deputy, Ms Thokozani Khupe.  She told her party’s supporters in the United Kingdom that she was in politics for the money. She must have made these remarks at her most unguarded moment but we all know that what one says in private is what one believes not the posturing and lies we see at public forums.

Therefore, Ms Khupe, and by extension her party MDC-T and the local opposition are in it for the money, not for the people.  Who, certainly, will vote for a political party whose leader declares that they are seeking votes so that they can have access to money and money alone if elected not serving the electorate?  Who will certainly trust a political party whose leader speaks as Ms Khupe did?

The Afrobarometer findings were released as a former top official in MDC-T Dr Toendepi Shonhe said that the “grand coalition” being worked on by Mr Tsvangirai and his colleagues is facing a “grand defeat” in next year’s election.

“There appears to be somewhat growing consensus that a grand coalition is the ultimate answer to the complex and regressive challenges in Zimbabwe,” he wrote in the Gravitas Volume 1. Issue 7 released on May 2, 2017.

“This article posits that the proponents and architects of the ‘grand’ coalition may somehow be both simplistic and green in exaggerating the usefulness of this solo tactic.”