Why Mugabe owes a debt to rural voters

Key issues: Opposition says it had little time to change old attitudes

Zimbabwe: special report
It was the rural vote which saved Robert Mugabe's face in Zimbabwe's hotly contested elections, and even Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, accepted that yesterday. "The result was a true reflection of rural people's views. We didn't have access to them, and the work we did there before the reign of terror was insufficient. We didn't have enough time to change attitudes."

So, although the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) still insists that intimidation by the ruling Zanu-PF party played a large role, it acknowledges that the party was working in a context which was favourable to it.

Rural people, particularly the middle-aged and elderly who remembered the seven years of war before liberation were ready to accept Zanu-PF's argument that war could resume if the opposition won.

The line of thinking may not have been logical but the conservative sentiment was there. Others were swayed by the feeling that Zanu-PF brought liberation from white minority rule in 1980 and to desert it would be a betrayal, not only of the liberation forces but of earlier generations.

Whatever the motives which prompted individuals in the polling booth, Zanu-PF's sweep through Mashonaland - the heartland of its supporters during the liberation war - was remarkable. It won all 10 constituencies in Mashonaland Central, 10 out of 12 in Mashonaland West, and 11 out of 12 in Mashonaland East.

Mr Tsvangirai had hoped to break into this territory, which is why he chose to fight in a rural constituency, albeit in Buhera North in Manicaland, another largely Shona area. "My national executive advised me to take a safe seat in Harare, but it was my strategy to go out into the rural areas and show that discontent there was the same as in the towns," he said.

His decision to take the risk of a rural constituency followed from his analysis of the results of the February referendum, which was defeated entirely on the basis of the urban vote. Indeed, MDC supporters repeatedly pointed out before last weekend's vote that their referendum victory by no means guaranteed success in a general election.

They reminded reporters that although the overall total of No votes was enough to reject the draft constitution which had been put to referendum, it was carried in 63 constituencies and defeated in 57. The figures bear an uncanny similarity to Zanu-PF's tally of 62 seats yesterday against the MDC's 57.

Government ministers say the referendum's defeat was a wake-up call for Zanu-PF. "We realised we had to start mobilising, and we did," one senior party figure said yesterday. They chose to fall back on their traditional issue, the question of land. The occupations of farms by war veterans served a double purpose. It raised the profile of the land issue nationally as unfinished business left over from the liberation struggle, which had brought political independence but not econonomic independence.

The strategy was obviously successful in reminding peasants in the so-called communal areas where no white farmers live (known in colonial days as the tribal trust lands) that unfair land distribution was still a key issue.

It must also have had some effect among black farmworkers and other Africans in the so-called commercial farming areas. In Chinhoyi, for example, where Mr Mugabe held an emotional rally on the last day of the campaign, the Zanu-PF candidate won the seat, though by a relatively narrow margin of 8,176 to the MDC's 7,602.

Though this was probably not intended, the land issue had the effect of arousing strong reactions from the British government, especially Peter Hain and Robin Cook. This allowed Mr Mugabe to claim there was a real danger of a reversion to white rule.

Privately, Zanu-PF ministers were equally angry with the United States, which they rightly believe controls the IMF and the World Bank. It is these two institutions that have been imposing the main conditions for new loans to Zimbabwe. They are also furious with the US Senate for passing a Zimbabwe Democracy Act, which supports programmes for aiding opposition-minded civic groups and the non-governmental media in Zimbabwe. "We're being turned into another Iraq or Cuba," says Chen Chinutengwende, the information minister.

Finally, the land issue had the benefit for Robert Mugabe of deflecting attention from other issues, such as joblessness, inflation and corruption. This was what worried urban voters most. Here Zanu-PF failed miserably. Every seat in Harare and Bulawayo, the two main cities, went to the opposition MDC.

Zanu-PF also did very badly in Matabeleland, picking up only two out of 15 constituencies, and losing several cabinet ministers' seats.

To try to win urban voters back in the two years until the presidential elections, Mr Mugabe has promised to bring in price controls on a few basic commodities, bread, mealie meal, milk, and meat. During the campaign these promises did not win enough people over, perhaps because they did not believe they were practical. Zanu-PF will have to deliver on its promises now it has won the election.

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