Opposition supporters calling for free and fair elections outside the offices of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission in Harare in 2018.
Jeksai Njikizana/AFP via Getty Images.
Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections look like their predecessors: stolen. But this one is a bit different. Opposition strategies and regional responses have changed too. What does this mean for the future?
Women’s representation in Zimbabwe’s parliament has declined in spite of a quota imposed in 2013.
Nelson Chamisa, leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change, addresses supporters at a rally.
Zinyange Auntony / AFP via Getty Images
Informal sector organisations in Zimbabwe have the potential to influence politics at a personal and societal level.
A still featuring opposition leader Nelson Chamisa from the film President (2021).
Louverture Films/President/Encounters South African International Documentary Festival
The award-winning documentary - now on in South Africa - follows opposition leader Nelson Chamisa. But it spends too much time in meetings instead of giving insight into the bigger picture.
Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa meets his Chinese counterpart President Xi Jinping in Beijing, in 2018.
EPA-EFE/Lintao Zhang / POOL
The more President Mnangagwa’s government fails to engage democratically with its own citizens, the more it will negate any prospect of re-engagement with the West.
Zimbabwe Defense Force soldiers during protests against President Robert Mugabe in 2017.
EPA-EFE/KIM LUDBROOK
Zimbabwe wants to issue a sovereign bond to raise $3.5 billion it has agreed to pay as compensation to white farmers, but the economic and political conditions aren’t conducive to such an issuance.
A scene from a play about the Gukurahundi genocide, 1983 The Dark Years, performed in Harare in 2018.
JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP/Getty Images
The current lockdown in Zimbabwe is going to provide a stern test for its informal economy, which is the country’s dominant economy and employs 90% of people.
Frank and Bethine Church Chair of Public Affairs & Associate Professor, School of Public Service; Nonresident Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Boise State University