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TellZim reporter
A high voter apathy beckons in Zimbabwe in 2023 following revelations by electoral management body Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) that the mobile voter registration exercise bore undesired fruits marred by a poor turn-out nationwide.
While the main political parties, Zanu PF and Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) have a target of five and six million votes respectively, only 5,804 975 people had registered in June.
ZEC reported that a total percentage of two was realized from the just- concluded registration exercise while at the same time there were plans to embark on a delimitation of constituency exercise whose success could be dependent on numbers of registered voters and results of the household and population census.
Despite constituting a greater chunk of the total national population, the youth have been reluctant to embrace the voting systems as is evidenced by failure or little turn-out for voter registration.
Political analyst Dr Wellington Gadzikwa said a greater part of the population has lost faith in electoral system and voting itself.
“People are tired; they have been voting over so many years and have not seen the results. Voting in Zimbabwe has become a ritual because sometimes people claim that when they vote, their votes are not respected especially if one looks at the manner in which legislators were recalled (apparently by MDC Alliance leader Douglas Mwonzora).
“Since 1980 voting has only helped those who have been voted into power for not those who vote. People are now busy with their means of survival with some even migrating to other countries. I think they have now come to a conclusion that voting will not solve anything. The blitz, even if it is to be done will not motivate people to register to vote as they have lost confidence in electoral systems,” said Dr Gadzikwa.
He also said they know that if they vote, their votes will not be respected with these allegations of vote rigging surfacing.
Another political analyst Dr Last Alfandika echoed the same sentiments while at the same time he pointed out the position of the youth in electoral processes which he says is poor.
“There are various issues that I think are contributing to voter registration apathy. People are tired because of voting with no meaningful changes taking place. The other issue is of people failing to understand the importance of voting itself or reasons for voting.
“People seem to be deliberately not registering because they have lost faith in the electoral system while at the same time they lack knowledge. They seem to be living in the old narrative which is reflective of the fact that the older generation participate in elections while the younger does not. Young people fail to understand that voting is their constitutional right in a democratic society,” said Dr Alfandika.
He however pointed out that ZEC is poorly resourced to ensure effective voter education is rolled out countrywide.
“The other issue is that ZEC does not have resources to carry massive voter education. Before we embark on voter registration, there is need for voter education of which ZEC is failing to do so. They lack enough equipment, human resource as well as cars to ensure voter education is carried out.
“If they had resources, they would have been able to capture the youthful generation which is missing in electoral processes,” he said.
Another analyst Dr Davidson Mugodzwa said the apathy could be attributed to a youthful voting population without confidence in the political processes.
“Basically there are two problems that voter registration apathy could be attributed to. One the national population is quite youthful and despite them being disgruntled, poor or adversely affected by economic challenges, has lost confidence in voting because of the manner in which previous election results failed to reflect reality on the ground.
“Everybody in Zimbabwe now thinks that if elections cannot change effectively the political atmosphere which is controlled by the military, hence apathy stems from the realization that no direct change would be realized.
“The same youth seem to be frustrated to the extent of not even caring about elections and are devastated such that most of them have resorted to drug abuse even in institutions of higher learning. They are not really politically-conscious people and I don’t know how best to awaken them to the realization that voting is important to turn around their lives,” said Dr Mugodzwa.
He pointed out that government minimized the number of Civic Society Organizations participating in voter education for fear that the private ones could influence outcome of elections.
“Government would not allow private sector to act independently in the area of elections because they are afraid that the CSOs might not only conscentise people to vote but influence whom to vote for. Government fingers are even crossed such that they want the apathy to continue,” he added.
