Zimbabwe opposition’s prospects good, says Biti

Zimbabwe’s elections scheduled to take place in 2018 will be the most important in a generation and critical to restoring democracy and economic growth in a country that has been dominated by one party since independence in 1980, Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) politician Tendai Biti said on Wednesday.

A violent election and land reform programme in 2000 caused an economic collapse.

“It is the most important election of our lifetime because it has to answer the question of legitimacy,” Biti said in Johannesburg as Zimbabwe celebrated its national independence day. “The quality of this election, the substantive content and outcome of the election are going to be key.”

Zimbabwe is required by its constitution to hold general and presidential elections by August 22. The vote will be the first without Robert Mugabe since 1980. Mugabe, 94, stepped down as president in November 2017 after the military temporarily took control. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, who replaced Mugabe, has been nominated by Zanu-PF as its presidential candidate.

Six opposition parties have formed an alliance with the biggest group, the MDC.

Zimbabwe’s main opposition figure and MDC founder Morgan Tsvangirai died of cancer in February. Nelson Chamisa, a 39year-old lawyer, will run as the coalition candidate.

Biti said the opposition’s prospects for the elections are good, partly because 60% of the 5.3-million registered voters are between 18 and 40 and have little memory of the liberation war that shaped the governing party’s generation. Chamisa’s youth will help, he said.

“Demographics are going to play a key role in this election.”

Still, the influence of the military on Zimbabwe’s leadership bodes ill for genuine democratic reform, he said. “We may have removed a dictator but we did not remove the dictatorship.”

Five elections between 2000 and 2013 were marred by allegations of rigging, violence and intimidation, with Mugabe accused of human rights abuse.

While Mugabe refused to allow Zimbabweans living abroad to cast their ballots, Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo said this week the government was working on the logistics of the diaspora vote because it is guaranteed in the constitution that was rewritten and enacted in 2013.

An estimated 4-million Zimbabweans, about a quarter of the population, live in foreign countries, with the majority in SA.

To ensure credible elections, the opposition alliance is seeking as many as 10 electoral reforms, including scaling down the role of military or former military officials in the electoral commission.