What mechanisms have ensured ZANU-PF’s enduring rule? This article identifies five: an ideological belief in a right to rule in perpetuity, a party machinery that penetrates the organs of state, a corrupted economy vested in the hands of party loyalists, an institutionalized role in policy making for military commanders, and a heavy reliance on violence, increasingly outsourced to auxiliary forces. Because the ZANU-PF regime-a militarized form of electoral authoritarianism-will outlast the Robert Mugabe’s political career or biological lifespan, it will affect the nature of any political transition and future prospects for democracy in Zimbabwe.
About the Authors
Michael Bratton
Michael Bratton is University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University. He is a founder of the Afrobarometer and the author of Public Opinion, Democracy, and Markets in Africa (2005).
Eldred Masunungure is a lecturer in political and administrative studies at the University of Zimbabwe and director of the Mass Public Opinion Institute in Harare.
After four years of sharing power with the opposition, Zimbabwe’s longtime president Robert Mugabe and his party claimed a huge victory in the 2013 elections. What accounts for the opposition’s…
The use of force and intimidation against women trying to take part in politics is a growing problem in many places. Such violence assumes a number of different forms, but…
Zimbabwe’s first elections since the November 2017 coup that ousted nonagenarian dictator Robert Mugabe were marred by the abuse of state resources, electoral irregularities, and a tragic bout of postelection violence that saw…