AFRICA’S OPPOSITION WILL TAKE THE CLASS UNTIL THEY LEARN THE LESSON

This week Zimbabwe had its first election in more than 30 years that did not have Robert Mugabe on the ballot paper.

After a tense campaign for the presidency, 23 candidates but, which for all intents and purposes was between President Emmerson Mnangagwa and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Nelson Chamisa, voting took place on Monday.

Mnangagawa was running as the candidate for a revitalised ZANU-PF, which he wrestled from Mugabe last year while Chamisa is the heir to Morgan Tshvangarai, who gave Mugabe his sternest test at the polls in the last election.

The first results in showed that ZANU-PF had won an unassailable majority in the house and despite Chamisa’s loud protestations, it’s hard to see how the presidential vote would go the other way. By the time this column went to press the winner of the presidential poll had not been declared.

It was déjà vu all over again.

"A youthful opposition goes up against an entrenched incumbency, plays up its chances of victory, the media always likes an upset and pumps up the narrative for all its worth, only for a “surprise” victory for the incumbent to happen...

We saw it with Mugabe. We saw it in Kenya. We saw it in Tanzania. We have seen it here in Uganda.

The advantage of incumbency cannot be overstated and more so when it is in the hands of weathered politicians like Mugabe or Kenyatta or the Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) or even Yoweri Museveni.

They are adept at building nationwide support networks, that occupy ground and deliver when activated. It is useful that they have state resources at their beck and call, which means they can cover massive ground, especially long before the campaign season even opens.

This is important because our countries are largely rural, with dispersed settlements. Secondly, we are not all wired to radio and TV networks, which would make it a lot easier for opposition candidates to project themselves without physically visiting every nook and cranny of the country.

Uganda for instance is only 22 percent urbanised. While Kenya and Zimbabwe are more urbanised, they still have at least two thirds of their citizens in the rural areas.

So the opposition in all these countries have concentrated on urban voters, especially the capitals of these countries.

"These populations connected among themselves and with other international networks are then able to create an impression, disproportionate to their numbers, convincing themselves and international watchers that they have a good shot at the prize...

And when the results are announced they have set the ground for charges of an unfair elections, topping it up with the claim that the government stole the vote.

The script is largely the same, only varying in the detail.

Of course the governments in question are not made up of choir boys. It would be naïve to expect they would not take advantage of incumbency. But we have seen it before, when it is time for the old guard to exit the stage there is no amount of tampering or intimidation that will save them at the polls. Even on this continent.

"For fear of looking like blaming the victim, in all these cases it is clear that the opposition does not have a credible nationwide presence. In the period between elections there is little to no work being done to extend their influence, they are often content to heckle the government in the capital, trick them into some brutality which plays “well” on TV  and any other number of grandstanding antics.
In the short campaign period they make enough noise for those looking in from the outside to think they have a real chance at the chair. But alas....

There are no shortcuts. Work has to be done recruiting more grassroot support, nurturing and sustaining it in between elections, for real impact to be felt when the campaigns roll around. Will it be easy? Nothing worthwhile ever comes easy.

Until this happens I am afraid the opposition will continue to take the class until they learn this lesson.