Following the release of the most recent opinion polls by Afrobarometer and the Mass Public Opinion Institute on 20 September 2024 which surveyed Zimbabwe’s political economy, it is crucial to unpack the implications of these polls ahead of the 2028 general election.
This year (2024) will be a significant pose and reflection year due to the country’s developmental targets set through Vision 2030, Zanu PF’s internal power dynamics regarding President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s tenure beyond the constitutionally mandated two terms ending in 2028 and the state of the currently fractured opposition.
The opposition’s effectiveness will be determined by how it is organised and informed by evidence from these polls
In modern nation-states, poll surveys play a critical role in diagnosing the political pulse of parties, governments, and the state.
This political pulse testing has become the norm across democracies, authoritarian regimes, and hybrid regimes alike.
Opinion polls are particularly important in hybrid regimes for four key strategic reasons.
First, they help manage local and international public opinion by signalling the ruling elite’s commitment to “democratizing,” “republicanising,” and its domestic legitimacy.
Secondly, opinion polls provide such regimes with insights into the effectiveness of their policies and opponent management strategies, enabling them to refine or devise new ones where necessary.
Thirdly, they help the opposition measure up against the ruling party, identify their weaknesses and strengths, understand the ruling party’s vulnerabilities and tailor make their opposing strategies to effectively signal their electoral threat to the incumbent.
Fourthly, opinion polls serve a signalling role to citizens and interested parties from the donor community, the business sector and investors regarding the strength, readiness, and longevity prospects of political parties.
For Zimbabwe, a hybrid regime reflecting features of both democracy and authoritarianism, the role of opinion polls is therefore indispensable for both the ruling elite and the opposition
Ignoring these polls would be perilous, akin to navigating troubled waters without a compass. Therefore, this week’s Zim-agora examines the recent poll results by Afrobarometer and the Mass Public Opinion Institute to understand and reveal their implications for the political dynamics within the ruling party, the opposition, and the Vision 2030 goals
Due to various gaps in knowledge, the general understanding of how opinion polls influence political decision-making remains incomplete in Zimbabwe.
Opinion polls are widely used by different actors in the political process for various reasons. Political parties commission opinion polls to analyse how to frame their campaigns; the media commission polls to speculate on the outcomes of elections or referendums; think tanks and interest groups rely on polls to propose viable policy solutions.
Political science is particularly interested in the use of polls by governments and politicians to mobilize or maintain support. Here, we focus on four key roles of opinion polls in hybrid regimes and their implications for the ruling party and government, opposition, and transition stakeholders, aiming to lay a framework for understanding Afrobarometer/MPOI survey results.
First, opinion polls help hybrid regimes like Zimbabwe manage local and international public opinion by signalling the ruling elite’s commitment to “democratizing,” “republicanising,” or whichever lexicon is used, and its legitimacy.
Hybrid regimes often strive to be viewed as democracies or republics to avoid international isolation which increases their vulnerability to coups and violent power takeovers.
For instance, Diamond’s study shows that hybrid regimes are particularly susceptible to democratic pressure due to their reliance on democratic forms and international validation, which increases their internal instability.
Schedler shows how electoral authoritarian regimes use elections to bolster their democratic legitimacy but also face increased vulnerability to coups due to internal power struggles and pressures.
To mitigate the fear of coups, they allow electoral contestations, albeit unfairly, to give a smokescreen of hope to internal and external parties that power can be peacefully accessed, thereby attracting benefits associated with democratic regimes.
Escribà-Folch highlights the vulnerabilities of hybrid regimes in maintaining power and legitimacy, noting that perceived democratic failings can lead to increased risks of coups and internal challenges. Svolik notes that as authoritarian and hybrid regimes try to manage internal conflict by attempting to appear democratic, this can sometimes backfire if democracy fails, leading to power struggles and coups.
Additionally, Ginsberg’s study shows that opinion polls can enhance state legitimacy by aligning policy priorities with public demand, yet they may also domesticate and potentially manipulate public opinion.
Secondly, opinion polls serve a signalling role to citizens and interested parties from the donor community, the business sector, and investors regarding the strength, readiness, and longevity prospects of political parties. Hobolt and Klemmemsen reveal that public opinion tends to drive the government’s policy intentions due to the threat of electoral sanction, and this is more pronounced in proportional systems than in majoritarian democracies.
Polls indicating strong support for the opposition create necessary fears within the ruling elite about regime longevity, leading to elite disintegration and defection.
This also causes a mass exodus of calculative financial, investor, and electoral supporters, as remaining in a political party that is likely to lose elections becomes futile to their interests. Conversely, the signalling power of the ruling elite through polls that show strong support helps intimidate opponents and attract crowds of supporters.
These supporters see backing an opposition with little to no chances of winning as a pointless endeavour.
Thirdly, opinion polls provide hybrid regimes with insights into the effectiveness of their policies and opponent management strategies, enabling them to refine or devise new ones where necessary.
Since hybrid regimes work hard to appear democratic to pacify potential coup plotters, likely violent rebellion leaders in the opposition, and the internationalcommunity, the correspondence between public preferences and public policy is critical to them.
Democracy emphasizes the importance of popular control of policy-making institutions, so these regimes strive to appear committed to this value.
A study by Page and Shapiro found that public opinion is often a proximate cause of policy, affecting policy more than policy influences opinion. Lastly, opinion polls help the opposition measure up against the ruling party, identify their weaknesses and strengths, and understand the ruling party’s vulnerabilities.
This is established by studies such as Stepan (2001), which shows that authoritarian breakdown and overthrow, sought by pro-democracy opposition, owe to the incremental process of authoritarian erosion such as elite dis-cohesion and the opposition’s contribution to it.
Thus, close scrutiny of the ruling party and government’s dynamics, based on the interactions among core regime supporters, the coercive apparatus, passive supporters, passive opponents, and active opponents, is emphasised.
This allows the opposition to build their strategy, seize opportunities revealed by the polls, and strategically deploy resources.
Additionally, opinion polls help parties design their own campaign strategies and provide potential voters with a source of understanding and information that underlies their choices at the ballot box. They assist political parties in formulating strategies by providing insights into voter sentiments, allowing for targeted campaign strategies, and decreasing expected total campaigning expenditures by amplifying ex-ante asymmetries between candidates, thus defusing competition.
With the rationale for opinion polls dissected above, our focus in the next section turns to the analysis of Afrobarometer/MPOI survey results and their implications for various policy stakeholders
This paper revisits three critical results from the Afrobarometer/MPOI poll results which have the most critical highlights of the political pulse reading in Zimbabwe.
First, the results on current voting intentions show that, if presidential elections were held tomorrow, 41% would vote for Zanu PF and/or its candidate, 15% for Nelson Chamisa and/or a party aligned with him, 7% for CCC and/or its candidate, 7% wouldn’t vote, 29% don’t know/refused to answer, and 1% for other candidates.
Additionally, results on closeness to any political party showed that 37% were close to Zanu-PF, 6% to CCC, 9% to Chamisa-aligned groups, and 38% not close to any party.
Second, the Afrobarometer/MPOI poll results show that about 61% of Zimbabweans, with majorities among them being from rural areas, believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, and 63% describe the economic conditions as “fairly bad” or “very bad.” In contrast, 38% think the country is moving in the right direction, and 26% think economic conditions are “fairly good” or “very good.”
Third, the Afrobarometer/MPOI survey on support for term limits, which serves as an indirect measure of support for Mnangagwa’s stay in power beyond his constitutionally limited terms ending in 2028, shows that a significant 79% of respondents support presidential term limits, with higher support in urban areas and among those with higher education levels.