As Zimbabwe nears its make-or-break elections on 31 July, the country’s 89-year-old president, Robert Mugabe, appears haunted by the prospect of being shown the exit by restive youths with little or no job prospects.

Figures on Zimbabwe’s unemployment rate range wildly from the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency (ZIMSTAT) estimates of 7.7 per cent to 90 per cent according to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the country’s largest labour body.

This huge disparity comes from the government’s rather narrow definition of unemployment, but what cannot be disputed is that after 33 years in power, Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (Zanu-PF) has failed to create jobs for its people – particularly for its youth.

There are approximately 4.8 million potential voters in the 18 to 35 age group in Zimbabwe, making up 61 per cent of eligible voters.

Many of them will be first time voters in an election in which Mugabe’s nemesis, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is hoping to finally take power.

Even though both men have been locked in a power-sharing agreement since the 2008 elections, this will be Tsvangirai’s third attempt at ousting Mugabe.

And he could be in with a chance. Young voters are being wooed by the MDC’s economic policy, dubbed JUICE (Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and the Environment), which promises to create one million new jobs by 2018.

But the stakes are high. Credible, “free and fair” elections will allow Zimbabwe to re-establish relations with the world, especially the European Union, which previously slapped Zimbabwe with economic sanctions that brought the country to its knees.

In the run up to the election, experts have lowered projected growth for 2013 from 5 per cent to 3.9 per cent, due in part to political instability. And the country’s mining sector – which is the biggest contributor to Zimbabwe’s economic output – has also been adversely affected by declining mineral prices.

On the other hand, a disputed election is likely to see the country sliding back to the economic turmoil of the period between 2000 and 2008, when Zimbabwe experienced acute food and fuel shortages that reduced the former bread basket of Africa to an economic basket case.

Two million excluded

It appears that Mugabe feels so threatened by the youth vote that he has used his control of state institutions to restrict the number of first-time voters who were able to successfully register for this year’s elections.

Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives were hired to conduct the voter registration exercise and they frustrated millions of potential voters by making impossible demands such as proof of residence (difficult in a country where most young people do not receive utility bills as they either live with family or live off-grid) or the provision of death certificates of late parents (most of which are kept in rural homes).

According to a report on the preliminary findings of the June 2013 voters roll audit by the Zimbabwean NGO Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU), more than two million voters under the age of 30 were unable to register to vote, which translates as 29 per cent of the eligible adult vote.

President of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), George Nkiwane, told Equal Times that Zanu-PF’s fear of young voters is understandable given that the party’s policies – such as the Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP),which undermined the country’s industrial base, the Fast Track Land Resettlement Programme and the Indigenisation and Empowerment laws, which compelled foreign companies to cede 51 per cent shares to black Zimbabweans without compensation – had led to the closure of industries which led to massive job losses.

“They realised that no right-minded youth would vote for Zanu-PF if given the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, so they devised ways to block them from registering. The party knew that youths are an impatient lot and many of them would be easily frustrated into abandoning the registration process,” Nkiwane said.

Following the economic collapse of Zimbabwe in the early 2000s and years of political repression, it has been estimated that as much as a quarter of the country’s 12.6 million strong population have been forced to live abroad in order to find work or seek asylum.

Nkiwane added that Mugabe is aware that most young people who were forced to work abroad, particularly in South Africa, want to come back to work at home. But as there are still no jobs, this is only considered possible with a new government.

The Election Resource Centre (ERC) is a Harare-based NGO that has been leading a first-time voter campaign dubbed ‘X1G’. Tawanda Chimhini, who works as the Elections Director at ERC, said the youth vote is a free vote which will be won by a political party that listens to the needs of Zimbabwe’s young.

“The youth vote is not defined by politics but by the interests of young voters. They are trying to access what they have been failing to get all these years.

“They are trying to make full use of their vote and this vote will not be won by jingles and adverts or empty rhetoric,” he said.



Failed responsibility

Political analyst, Pedzisai Ruhanya, said the government had failed to create jobs for the thousands of university graduates produced by Zimbabwe each year and that it would be difficult for young people to vote for such a government.

“If you look at the almost one million new voters who managed to register as voters, they are school leavers and university graduates who have no jobs. It is Mugabe’s government that presided over that economic turmoil which led to the flight of capital and the breakdown of social services.

“There has been lack of opportunities and policies such as the indigenisation have led to job losses, and the youths are an informed lot who would vote for an economic order that does not scare investors,” he said.

But while the regime had managed to frustrate the registration of many first-time voters, the nearly one million who managed to register can make a difference.

Prosper Chitambara, a senior economist with the Labour and Economic Research Institute of Zimbabwe (LEDRIZ), said that all over the world, young people are clamouring for change, and any government that fails to listen to their demands is under threat as recent events in Egypt, Bulgaria, Turkey and Brazil prove.

“With the current unemployment and under-employment, the youths obviously want jobs now. There is actually high expectation even the new government will find it challenging to fulfil the demands of the youths by providing jobs and social services,” he said.