Monday, 21 August 2023

12pm Washington D.C.
5pm London / Lagos / Kinshasa
6pm Paris / Cape Town / Cairo
7pm Nairobi

On 4 August, Tinashe Chitsunge -- a supporter of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) -- was stoned to death. He was traveling to a CCC rally when the group that he was with was ambushed by suspected supporters of ZANU-PF, the country's long-ruling party. The attack represented the culmination of a growing climate of brutality as Zimbabwe heads to the polls on 23 August.

According to Afrobarometer, the proportion of the Zimbabwean population fearing violence during the elections has risen to 58%, up from 43% in 2018.

Along with a raft of highly repressive legislation -- including the Private Voluntary Organizations (PVO) Bill and the Patriotic Bill -- this has led to concerns that this month's elections will be as bad as those held under former autocratic leader Robert Mugabe. In the absence of checks and balances, and with the ZANU-PF government’s low popularity meaning it could still struggle to win -- despite all of its advantages -- there is a real prospect of even more violence around and on election day.

Today, civil society groups are hampered by major restrictions on their activities and the knowledge that an increasingly politicized judiciary will not protect them. International observers are also constrained by late arrivals into the country and the fact that the government has been vetting who is and is not allowed to be part of international missions. For their part, international donors appear to be stuck in a rut, unsure of how to engage with the authoritarian government of Emmerson Mnangagwa, now that he has clearly abandoned an initial commitment to hold “free, fair and credible elections”.

This Twitter Space will convene civil society leaders, activists and leading writers to assess the electoral environment and what can be done -- if anything -- to safeguard the polls. We will also look at lessons from Zimbabwe’s history, and other countries in the region that have managed to resist oppressive electoral environments to hold those in power accountable.

Meet our panel

Moderation