Zimbabweans to decide between President Mnangagwa, Nelson Chamisa

Colorful campaign posters adorn street poles, buildings, vehicles and trees in Zimbabwe, but the buzz surrounding the country’s upcoming general election appears to end there.

The presidential and parliamentary elections taking place on Wednesday are crucial to determining the future of a southern African nation endowed with vast mineral resources and rich agricultural land.

But for many people in the educated but underemployed population, the daily grind to put food on the table inhibits interest in politics.

It wasn’t like this five years ago, when Zimbabwe prepared to hold its first elections since a coup ended the repressive 37-year rule of President Robert Mugabe.

Multitudes thronged the streets to openly flaunt their desire for change in the country of 15 million people.

Mugabe’s former vice president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, took over as president after the coup and promised a new beginning that would include economic prosperity, media freedom, easing of the opposition clampdown that marked Mugabe’s tenure, and a thawing of relations with Western countries.

But the July 2018 general election turned into a disappointment.

The opposition disputed the presidential election results after Mnangagwa was declared the winner.

Members of the army killed six people after storming the streets of the capital to put down a protest over delays in announcing the results and suspicions of rigging.

Since then, many citizens have felt let down by Mnangagwa and his administration.

Fatigue has replaced the excitement once held by Zimbabweans who hoped Mugabe’s removal would signal a break from decades of political repression, violent and disputed elections, and international isolation resulting from U.S. and European Union sanctions over alleged human rights abuses, analysts say.

This year’s elections “certainly do not offer the same hope of a reset that the 2018 elections did,” Nicolas Delaunay, the East and Southern Africa director of the International Crisis Group, wrote in an analysis on the organization’s website.

In the presidential race, incumbent Mnangagwa, 80, faces a challenge from the main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, 45, whom he beat by a razor-thin margin in the last election.

Zimbabwe has a history of disputed and violent elections since the country’s independence from the United Kingdom gained international recognition in 1980.

Human rights groups say the same factors that blighted past elections, such as intimidation, voter roll irregularities, public media bias, and the use of law enforcement and the courts to hamstring opposition campaigns, remain as concerns.

In recent weeks, the nation’s courts have been busy handling election-related cases that included the disqualification of an influential presidential candidate and opposition parliamentary candidates, as well as gerrymandering allegations, police ban on opposition meetings and demands by the opposition for a final copy of voter registration lists.

Although the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has registered nearly a million more voters than for the last general election, independent research points to a wary pre-election mood.

In a survey by Afrobarometer, a respected Pan-African organization, 54% of respondents said they think elections “do not work well” in empowering voters to remove unpopular leaders.

Nearly half fear “that the announced results will not reflect counted results,” according to the survey findings released in July.

At the same time, 70% of those Afrobarometer surveyed said they would “definitely” vote this time around, although 27% were unwilling to publicly state their choices in a country where revealing such information can have harsh repercussions.

High unemployment has forced more than two-thirds of Zimbabwe’s working age population to survive through informal work such as street vending or in backyard facilities ranging from hair salons and car repair shops to writing services for university dissertations, according to the International Monetary Fund.

Many factories closed down during the past two decades of Zimbabwe’s economic turmoil.

“The key issues in terms of the two candidates, what I have picked up, (is) they are also talking about the economic recovery of Zimbabwe,” Sipho Mantula, a researcher at the University of South Africa, told the Associated Press.

“One looks at these elections as if it’s a turf around reclaiming Zimbabwe’s economic glory. But at the same time, tackling the social issues.”

For many Zimbabweans, change in government is necessary and desirable, but they just don’t see it coming from this national election.

Africanews/Hauwa M.