Emerging Meaning/Effect of Disputed Elections- “Main Actoring the Electoral Moment”

By Takura Zhangazha*

It is now a universally accepted norm and preference that all countries hold regular elections as legitimating mechanisms for the acquisition or transfer of political power.  Even in countries that are generally not considered democratic. 

At their onset and as motivated by the United Nations, elections and electoral processes have been considered democratically meaningful.  But not necessarily revolutionary.  Though in some cases, such as those when African liberation movements won inaugural pre-independence elections, they may have been considered so.  Or if we go to the global north and recall the election of the United States of America’s (USA) first black president in 2008. 

But we also know that apartheid South Africa and closer to home, Southern Rhodesia also held elections.  On the latter Masipula Sithole wrote a very interesting analysis on what he referred to as ‘intra-white settler democracy’ wherein in the settler state there was the regularity of elections for the white minority. And how these were also regularly recognized by the ‘global international community’. 

In our contemporary times however elections have begun to take on a new meaning. Mainly because there are now international standards expected of how they are conducted, including their regularity.  But more significantly because of the fact that they are now viewed, in most cases, as representing  a ‘winner takes all’ approach to political power.  As well as to a direct control of state capital as it relates to a global neo-liberal economy. 

Because of the latter point, which I am sure a number of academics are avidly working on expanding, elections and electoral processes while requiring minimal democratic standards are no longer as of traditional democratic old. 

Their periodic occurrence, which remains an important and democratically good thing, has come to mean so much more than their mere occurrence. Vested interests on either side of the global capital divide are avidly competing for what they would consider to be the 'peoples' will' and the more significant attendant exploitation of national wealth that is perennially at stake. 

All characterized by disputes over final electoral results.  Wherein the majority of cases disputes on results are about who has won the post of the seeming 'winner takes all' executive presidency.  As opposed to who has won anything else such as the legislative or local government vote counts.  The key challenge and desire is attaining or retaining ultimate executive political power. And its all fair enough but we would have to look at a few recent examples to expand my argumentation further. 

In the USA, the incumbent president, Donald Trump, went down to the wire in disputing the results of the November 2020 presidential plebiscite.  Including being accused of being directly involved in a siege of that nations parliamentary buildings in Washington DC in early January 2021.  A development that has led to unprecedented impeachment proceedings on a sitting USA president by the American Congress.  Despite this, it is still reported that Trump intends to give the presidency another go in 2024.

The second example is that of the even more recent Ugandan elections in which long serving ruler Yoweri Museveni was declared the winner against a younger Bobi Wine.  The latter is vehemently refuting the results and has been reported in the media as seeking to challenge the validity of the results in court.

The third and final example is that of the Tanzanian presidential elections where again the incumbent John Magufuli was declared an overwhelming victor over his strongest rival Tundu Lissu.  The latter has since gone into exile. 

In these examples cited above, there are certain common characteristics that come into vogue.  The first being that there are arguments about urban versus rural votes.  Or in the case of the USA, the conservative hinterland versus the liberal coast cities. 

There is also the case of arguing about the youth vote and how again it relates largely to the rural/urban dichotomy.  Including the same’s populist trends, intentions and ephemerality.  Amid allegations fo rigging, the youth vote has become the holy grail of contemporary electoral politics.  Based on population demographics and assumptions that images of relatively mature people running for office can never sit well with the same population demographic.  A point that remains as arguable as it is based on the emotive but privately owned social media company platforms’ clicks, likes via their algorithms. 

Thirdly, there is the argumentation around methodology and technicalities of voting.  This is always a long running ‘reform’ argument that seeks to make more transparent how votes are counted, tallied and relayed to some electoral center or the other.  From postal ballots induced by Covid19 in the USA or polling station tallies in remote areas of Uganda or Tanzania, the trend is clear about the technicalities as they eventually arrive to be argued at one electoral court or the other.  And in most cases with the same courts deciding against the challenger.

But we still have to ask the question about what it is that is making elections, electoral processes and their results such highly contested occurrences in the now.  At the risk of sounding over philosophical, I would argue that it is the retention of a consciousness that is pre-occupied by the reality and possibility of the passage of time.  In order to live to fight another day and ensure that same struggle is retained in the consciousness of those that would be quasi-cultist supporters of an electoral candidate.  Ones' who remember more the past than they would envision a better future for all.  On either side of existent political divides.  A pre-disposition that I personally refer to as ‘main-actoring’.

We need to ask ourselves the key question of what we advise political leaders at the emotional heights of claiming electoral victories. Its not too complicated. They need to think beyond themselves and their egos.  Both in victory or in contested defeat.  But expanding on this is for another write up.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)

 

Zimbabwe in 2021: The Necessity of Optimum Equality for All

 By Takura Zhangazha*

The passage of the year 2020 in our memories is something that will be with us for a long while yet.  Mainly because it brought with it a global pandemic that we all have now come to know as the corona virus (Covid19) and its devastating impact on our common/shared global existence.   The abrupt changes that the pandemic has brought to what we considered ‘normal existence’, even here in the  Global South,  has led many of us into the trap of not thinking about short or long term futures. Instead we have understandably become focused on the immediate.  Even via asking ourselves apocalyptic questions such as,  "Will I/we (family) survive this?” Or, “Where will my income emanate from in a lock-down situation for me to pay for the general upkeep of my family?”  

We now also know that 2020 sort of put paid to a lot of  our personal short and long term 'normal' plans. And depending on your class status these would be either at a subsistence or highly materialist level (car, urban house/ travel). 

What appears to have mattered the most in all of these now hindered aspirations is what was and probably still is our individual desire not only for the material but also recognition at, again, individual success.  Be it in the form of individual material success such as the purchase of urban property, modern technological equipment or sending the children to privileged private schools or universities (and their colonial recognition baggage). 

The year 2021 should have a new significance for Zimbabwean society. And I write this not as a revolutionary thesis.  But more out of a personal desire to establish a balance between individual material desire and what would be considered in the global north as the common good of a society.

Before Covid19 changed our lives fundamentally we all seemed set on certain chosen paths. Some which we still stubbornly hold onto. Be it politically, economically or socially.  In these as argued above we sought 'individual' progress. Never mind the system we were operating under.  One could wake up and talk of nationalism one day while fronting ‘land barons’and their attendant urban land theft. Or alternatively arguing about how bad the national economy is while  pursuing highly individuated material interests in the name of the 'people'. 

In either case we found ourselves in what can be considered to be 'contradictory' value systems.  That is value propositions that while arguing for a ‘collective national well-being’ are comfortably ensconced in quasi hedonistic individualism, consumerism and materialism. 

The year 2020 and Covid19 should have made us pause to reflect on such approaches to our national existence and consciousness.  But they did not.  

But in order to be clearer about the immediate and long term future that we anticipate particularly for the year 2021, we have to be as realistic as we are honest with ourselves.  And where we desire a specific type of future, then we have to be both optimistic and idealistic. 

In being realistic about 2021 in Zimbabwe there are two key considerations we must take into account.  The first being that our national political economy has been set on a trajectory of pandering to the interests of those that already have money.  

Even in the context of Covid19 the government has made it clear that it will prioritize private capital’s needs with a vainglorious hope that there will be a ‘trickle-down effect’ from the latter’s ‘investments’ that we are still being exhorted to ‘patiently’ wait for. Hence already even in the access to treatment for Covid19 symptoms, it remains easier for those that have wealth to get first preference. And in some ridiculous instances for some of those with wealth to advise everyone else to buy personal ventilators.  Add o this the loss of livelihoods for many urban and rural poor due o rising unemployment caused by closure of small o medium enterprises and the limitations of the informal trading sectors.   

In the second instance our 2021 realism has to take into account the fact that we are faced with significant changes to our social relationships and lifestyles.  Mainly because of Covid19 and the tragic loss of lives.  But also more significantly because of lock-downs and the associational restrictions that they bring.  This means that the regularity of given interactions with family, school, work or other association colleagues will remain not only rare but in their occurrence, less convivial. This means our society faces a fundamental change from being one in which we were used to general association to being one in which we will be increasingly isolated.  Either as individuals or in our immediate family.  It is almost like a tragic involuntary societal rapture as necessitated by Covid19.   

Where we choose to be optimistic about 2021 we need to harness our deepest thought processes for big ideas that focus on how to deal with Covid19 as a collective society.  With a candidness that seeks above all else the pursuit of optimum equality and social and economic justice for all Zimbabweans.   

By optimum equality here I mean that within the context of the Covid19 pandemic we should be ensuring that there are basic social and economic rights that are available to all Zimbabweans and as provided for by the state. These rights in our current context should fundamentally be about access to healthcare (including food), education, water, shelter and free expression for all of us regardless of whether we are in the urban or the rural. Where we seek to politicize the pandemic, as we are naturally wont to do, it would still be imperative that we establish this baseline approach to how we seek to ease the effects of Covid19. As opposed to adopting a socialism for the already rich or those that mimic them.

The mantra that is often used by those in power is that of ‘no one is left behind.’ They are not being honest.  The agenda we must set in 2021 is that no one should ever have been left behind.  And that we must ensure hat we are in 2021 living on soicio-economic level playing field.  Not just based on salaried income but economic structural equitable distribution for all.  With the priority being optimum equality of access to social and economic rights for all Zimbabweans. Especially in the context of Covid19.

*Takura Zhangazha writes here in his personal capacity (takura-zhangazha.blogspot.com)