Election 2018: Make the youth believe, then deliver

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is in the process of cleaning up the voters’ roll following the blitz voter registration exercise.

According to the nation’s electoral body, the clean-up activity is expected to be completed in April when the provisional voters’ roll will be available for inspection.

This is a key step in ensuring that the 2018 harmonised elections are free and fair as it will minimise contentions faced in the past due to the unavailability of the voters’ roll. Where there is obscurity, there will be doubt, something Zimbabwe cannot afford in this year’s polls.

The new ZEC chairperson, Justice Priscilla Chigumba, has committed herself to the task of conducting a credible election and took time this week to update various stakeholders on the progress that ZEC has made thus far.

During a meeting with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs and organisations that had petitioned Parliament on concerns over electoral issues, Justice Chigumba explained the steps ZEC was taking to clean up the voters’ roll and stated that it would take time as the process needed to be thorough. An interesting highlight from her update was that a large number of the people registered during the BVR blitz exercise were youth.

“According to our preliminary statistics after the BVR registration blitz, about 60 percent of our registered voters are aged between 18 to 40,” she said.

This information is contrary to the trend in previous elections where the youth - going by the national definition of people aged 16 to 35 - did not vote, a majority of whom were not even registered.

Looking at the 2013 harmonised elections, information supplied by the Research and Advocacy Unit shows that 1 930 743 eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 30 were not registered. This figure constituted roughly 54 percent of the total youth vote at the time.

The 2018 election will therefore prove to be a lot different with a higher number of young people registering to vote. As it is still preliminary, one does not have details on the geographic spread of the youth vote or what percentage of the youth population registered to vote. There is also no data to show which of the political parties has a higher number of its young members registered and therefore it would be an exercise in futility to try and predict who will come out the favourite based on this primary information.

One can state, however, that the youth will be a critical factor in who wins this year’s polls. At 60 percent of the voting population - noting that the cut-off age for a youth is 35 not 40 - whoever is able to secure this block of voters will most certainly take the top prize.

As there will be a large number of first time voters from the youth demographic, we can assume that many of them do not officially belong to any political party. That means parties have a chance during the campaign season to woo these young voters to their side.

Political parties, large or small, should take this opportunity to focus their canvassing towards the youth.

The first step is to understand the makeup of the youth in the Zimbabwean society, what their needs and wants are, and how best to provide for these.

Zimbabwe is a diverse country, so parties should not be fooled into thinking that the youth are one homogenous block.

The differences among young Zimbabweans are similar to those of any other demographic falling into various categories, geographic, ethnic, gender, income and class. What is most important is that their politics are not necessarily guided by the strict ideologies that parties such as Zanu-PF and MDC-T have used to build support in the past.

This therefore requires parties to not to dwell on the differences, but look for common factors among the majority of young people. For rural, urban and Diaspora youth, one big issue they face is unemployment.

Young Zimbabweans are afflicted by a lack of formal employment. The number of graduates from local and foreign universities grows with each year, but the market does not have the capacity to absorb them into the workforce.

It would, therefore, serve parties well to make employment creation their primary objective and the centre of their campaigns. This needs to go beyond the rhetoric and actually convince the young people that their aspirations can become a reality. Whoever owns this issue will benefit come poll day.

With the power of incumbency, this is where Zanu-PF is at an advantage.

President Mnangagwa and his team have at their disposal the tools to bring positive changes to the lives of Zimbabweans.

They need to reform economic policies; they need to show a genuine commitment to clamp down on corruption, they need to ease the cash crisis and, most importantly, they need to turn whatever deals they have been negotiating into something tangible for the people to enjoy.

Another factor to consider for political parties is the age gap between the majority of voters and those to be voted for.

In a paper titled “The Youth Factor in Zimbabwe’s 2013 Harmonised Elections”, Dr Obert Hodzi argues that a reason for youth voter apathy in the past was that “none of the parties seem(ed) interested in having young people as active participants although they are happy to have their backing as voters, vigilantes and campaigners — an attitude that is bound to limit the enthusiasm of young people for political participation.”

Political parties should therefore look to fielding younger candidates to whom the electorate can relate.

If elected officials are representatives of the people, they should ideally be a reflection of the people they represent.

Bridging the generational gap in the halls of power should be a priority item for political formations.

This is perhaps where the MDC-T is at an advantage. Nelson Chamisa will almost certainly be the presidential candidate despite there being internal constitutional queries as to his legitimacy. He is by far the preferred opposition candidate and, much like his predecessor, he will use this to his advantage to retain power.

A problem he faces, however, is the divided house in which he stands. The youth in this election are likely to vote for stability and certainty, which the current climate in the MDC-T cannot guarantee.

In the last three months, Zimbabweans have experienced an enormous amount of change in the political landscape of the country. The first was the resignation of former President Mugabe and the ushering in of a new leader. They witnessed the unfortunate death of Morgan Tsvangirai, which has brought about leadership renewal in MDC-T.

What people expect now is economic and social change in the country. This election could provide that and people will not hesitate to cast their ballot for a candidate they are convinced can deliver. The onus is on the different parties to make the youth believe and then deliver.