From a ‘mere voter’ to a ‘voting plus’ focus

IHAVE observed from the ground and on digital platforms how some heroic women and men are conducting voter mobilisation under the most difficult circumstances ahead of Zimbabwe’s general election constitutionally due in 2023.

My observation is that mobilisation is predominantly based on voter education not organically linked to broader civic education. It is largely about providing information on who is eligible to vote, where the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s district offices are located and what is needed to register to vote like national identity document cards and how to register. Others go further to educate the people on how to check their names in the voter list, how to transfer one’s vote if need be and even provide modern digital maps showing where to vote. A new sweet chorus is on how to defend the vote which at times is reduced to sleeping at the polling station after casting one’s vote. Now with the easy-of-doing-politics on Twitter and other social media platforms one can discern on a daily basis short-sharp messages like “register to vote” and “defend your vote”.

The primary and important effect of this voter education approach is to provide information and to create a pool of voters. Reader, I think this is an important tenet of a functioning democracy and there is no substitute. However, an underlying danger is that one can create a pool of voters that are neither democratically nor politically conscious. Such a pool of voters can turn out to be subjects who can still look up to a “master” and “local big men” acting as agents of authoritarian consolidation. It will not be surprising if the mere voters’ actual vote will turn out to be an echo of patron-client structured relationships, misinformation and political ignorance. In short, once the election campaign gets in full swing mere registered voters can easily succumb to the whims and caprices of local and national enemies of democracy. It is dangerous to make an assumption that people know why to vote because it is a contested arena.

What am I suggesting? Voter education must become an integral component of a broader civic and political education program. This education might include the core economic, social and political issues facing Zimbabwe; the importance of democracy and choice; the system of government; the right and responsibilities to punish nonperformers and reward performers albeit their political party affiliation; the equal rights of women and men; the importance of contested offices to people’s day to day lives. How the vote will help sister Mwaimbodei to get sustainable access to quality maternal care, farming inputs and defend her communal land rights and gain access to better housing, energy and clean water and get food, financial income and government support for small family and informal businesses and guaranteed pension for Gogo, happiness and freedoms as well as decent education, peace and healing.

Reader, in addition to the easy-to-do-digital politics, civic and political education to create conscious citizens also requires constant physical presence in the rural hinterlands under the baobab trees, at the dip dinks and at community and family gatherings and at the local shops. This should not be limited to growth points where amenities are enticing for activists to sojourn. Some of us who grew up deep in rural Zimbabwe know that it takes some omnipresence in the rural enclave for one’s political story to be ingrained in the people’s hearts. Fly-by-night tours will not be effective that is why functional institutional structures remain of significance.

I am inclined to agree with O’Donnell that a democratic breakthrough will ultimately not be based on mere voters, but on citizens or rather conscious citizens with the wherewithal to hold leaders to account before, during and after the vote. This can be enhanced by a shift from a mere voter focus to a voting plus focus to elaborate from Bratton and Lagon. As Masunugure also argued, one can easily produce juridical citizens that are ‘probably registered as voters but that is about the limit or ceiling of their citizen participation’.

Reader, in such a context, democracy can remain unclaimed by mere voters come Zimbabwe’s general election in 2023. A challenge therefore is to intensify broader civic education with voter education being an integral part in order to institutionalise a voting plus focus. That can be one way citizens can claim democracy before, during and after the voting day. I end here. Phillan Zamchiya