POLITICAL analyst and University of London Professor Stephen Chan, who has followed Zimbabwean politics closely for more than four decades, has predicted that President Emmerson Mnangagwa will lose the 2023 presidential election to CCC president Nelson Chamisa although he doubts that the opposition will win a majority in Parliament.
NYASHA CHINGONO
Chan’s sentiments in a wide-ranging interview with The NewsHawks this week dovetail with those of several commentators who believe the economic downturn will make the ruling Zanu PF unpopular ahead of next year’s general election. Chan has been in Harare since last week.
A survey conducted by the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI) whose findings were
released in June shows the incipient decline of Mnangagwa and the rise of Chamisa.
Zanu PF officials are also unsettled by the government’s failure to address the economic challenges affecting the country amid concerns that this may result in the party losing elections next year.
“Well, it might be harder to fix the elections this coming time. Obviously there will be violence and things like that, but the economy is doing so badly,” Chan said.
“It’s not so much the possibility of the CCC and Mr Chamisa winning the elections but I’m looking at very much Zanu PF losing the elections because they’ve performed so poorly in terms of the economy. Even people who are favourably disposed towards the government are suffering very, very greatly because of economic downturn.”
Zimbabwe was recently put on the red list of hunger hotspots by the World Food
Programme (WFP), which had earlier predicted that nearly three million people living in the urban areas face hunger.
According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FewsNet), nearly 10 million people will be in need of food aid by September.
Zimbabwe is also facing a shortage of grain, with the government looking to import from neighbouring countries in the coming weeks.
“Everyone understands it’s going to get worse and what people are coming to understand is not that it’s going to get worse before it gets better. People are coming to understand it’s not going to get better under the current economic policies,” Chan told The NewsHawks.
“If they change economic policies, of course, I think that the poor people will benefit after a
short period of great difficulty. The oligarchs will suffer, but there aren’t enough oligarchs to win an election. So, I’m thinking that Zanu PF has got to re strategise if it wants to have a sure chance of winning the elections,” he added.
While Zanu PF and President Emmerson Mnangagwa are hamstrung by a non-performing economy, the Citizens’ Coalition for Change (CCC) also lacks the right arsenal to win an election, Chan argues.
“I don’t see the CCC as being as well-organised as the old MDC under Morgan Tsvangirai. That was a bit of a shambolic ship sometimes but, by and large, it was a tight electoral machine. Mr Chamisa doesn’t have that kind of machine. He doesn’t have a front bench; he doesn’t have a top leadership around him, and he seems reluctant to try to form that kind of leadership cadre around him. He can’t do it by himself so he might do well personally,” he said.
Chamisa polled 2.6 million votes in the 2018 elections and in some constituencies polled better than his member of Parliament.
Winning the popular vote, Chamisa remained a strong candidate, narrowly losing to Mnangagwa.
“As the presidential candidate, he remains popular, but I doubt very much whether his party will win enough seats to gain a parliamentary majority, for instance,” Chan said.
The Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI) survey showed that the Zanu PF leader would lose to the CCC leader if elections are held now. The survey signals that 33% of respondents would vote for Chamisa against 30 percent for Mnangagwa.
This is only the second time that an
Afrobarometer survey has shown an opposition candidate leading in Zimbabwe. The first time was in 2009 when founding MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai enjoyed a lead over the late Zanu PF leader Robert Mugabe. That was two weeks after the consummation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) and euphoria was high.
