A Brief Analysis of Zimabwe’s 2008 & 2013 Parliamentary Election Results in a Rural ZANU-PF Stronghold

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Jimmy Jombo-Charowa, Kotwa, MDC, Mudzi, Newten Kachepa, Peter Godwin, Tete Corridor, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe election

Although it has been several years since I’ve been to Zimbabwe, it is one of the African countries that I know best.  I visited the country on an annual basis for several years at the height of the country’s economic crisis and into the early years of the government of national unity.  My personal interest in African affairs really coalesced in 2008, when I visited Zimbabwe during Spring Break, just a few weeks before the historic elections that saw the opposition defeat incumbent

Africa in DC Upcoming Zimbabwe Coverage

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Robert Mugabe, US government ZImbabwe policy, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe election

I expect to have several posts up shortly speaking on developments in Zimbabwe.  One will be a conversation with a Zimbabwean gender rights activist currently based in DC and I plan to depart from my typical Africa in DC lens to examine the election results in a rural constituency that I have visited several times and which has traditionally been a bastion of support for Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF.

In the meanwhile, please read my analysis of a piece on Zimbabwean political developments in the early 1980s, I think it offers some important context for events today.

I’ll leave you with one personal observation.  I was very distressed by recent comments I heard from Shannon Smith, a high ranking official in the Bureau of African Affairs on American willingness to engage with Mugabe and ZANU – PF.  Consequently, I have been pleasantly surprised by the relatively strong comments from the State Department on the election (‘the culmination of a deeply flawed process’), which goes far beyond the appeasing comments uttered by Smith, who sounded like she was trying to win a stake in a Zimbabwean diamond mine.

Until the State Department statement, it seemed as if Mugabe was on the cusp of pulling a Myanmar-esque renaissance, perhaps if he hadn’t been so greedy as to decimate the MDC presence in parliament, the election may have been more ‘credible’.  It begs the question however – where was the USG in the midst of this deeply flawed process?

A Conversation with CSIS Summer Interns Pierre Tantchou and Sa’eed Husaini

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Africa Rising, Central African Republic, China in Africa, CSIS Interns, DC Africa interns, Mali election, MINUSMA, Pierre Tantchou, Sa’eed Husaini, South Africa - Nigeria relations, Zimbabwe election

Sa’eed (L) & Pierre (R)

I recently sat down for an engaging conversation with Pierre Tantchou and Sa’eed Husaini, summer interns for the Africa Program of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).*  Both have African connections – Sa’eed, a Nigerian national, recently graduated from Hope College, while Pierre, who completed his undergraduate degree at GMU, was born and raised in

CSIS Africa Notes Review #1: Whither Zimbabwe?

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black empowerment Zimbabwe, CSIS, CSIS Africa Note, indigenization Zimbabwe, Michael Clough, PF - ZAPU, Robert Mugabe, whites in Zimbabwe, ZANU - PF militancy, ZANU-PF, Zimbabwe election, Zimbabwe sanctions

I have previously committed to analyzing several of the CSIS Africa notes, monthly updates on a single issue from the CSIS Africa program that were distributed between 1982 and 2006.  In honor of my personal interest in Zimbabwe and the forthcoming elections, I will begin my review with an analysis of the November, 1983 note on ‘Whither Zimbabwe?’ by Michael Clough, a political scientist who has had affiliations with the Brookings Institution, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the University of California – Berkeley (note: I had never heard of him before reading this piece).

What instantly struck me about ‘Whither Zimbabwe?’ is