Is Zanu (PF)s carrot-and-stick approach working?

Nationwide he got 43 percent of the vote but in urban centres, such as Harare and Bulawayo, fewer than a quarter of voters supported the party. With of presidential elections due in the next few months, another defeat could deal a serious blow. Mugabe has responded by concentrating on rural areas, where Zanu (PF) support held up relatively well if the results of the 2008 election are to be believed.

The party is employing a typical carrot and stick approach. The carrot is the farm inputs being doled out to villagers, understood to be bankrolled by cash from diamonds, This is intended to demonstrate that Zanu (PF) is committed to the agrarian revolution and calculated to win the votes of the millions of peasant farmers, struggling to support their families on tiny patches of land carved out for them from formerly productive commercial farms.

The formerly white-owned, highly mechanised, large-scale farms are now little plots, most of them lying derelict with overgrown weeds. A select few have made it, but most of the resettled farmers have been stymied by a shortage of funds.

The stick is the use of the armed forces and war veterans to terrorise people into voting for Zanu (PF). Those in the rural areas bore the brunt of the fighting in the 1970s war of independence that brought Robert Mugabe to power. They are saying that if Zanu (PF) loses, they will go back to war, hoping that this will scare those considering voting for the MDC again into either changing their minds or staying at home.

A further element is the Western targeted measures. By blaming the current problems on the West, Mugabe is trying to absolve his own party from responsibility and hopes to persuade the Zimbabweans to support him.

Ronald Shumba, a political commentator, says this tactic will backfire. Amid escalating repression now spilling into cities by Zanu (PF) supporters in Harare and where MDC supporters have been singled out for beatings, he said that this would galvanise resistance as “rural and urban voters angry at the oppression would unite against Zanu (PF)”. But there is surprisingly little animosity against the MDC, even if Zanu (PF) has portrayed it as a treacherous party.

About 60 percent of the rural areas are currently occupied by a mixture of soldiers, war veterans, unemployed urban youths and peasants. MDC regalia and sloganeering has been banned. The huts of villagers have been searched.

Those found with MDC t-shirts, leaflets or other electoral material have been beaten up – some have needed hospital treatment. Zanu (PF) Politburo member, Jonathan Moyo, who for all intents and purposes has become the party spokesman, told a policy dialogue in Harare on Friday that MDC accusations that troop deployments were a Zanu (PF) plot to inculcate a culture of fear among villagers were “foolish.”

Moyo rubbished MDC accusations that villagers in Gutu had reported that soldiers loyal to Mugabe jackbooted them two weeks ago. The MDC said 30 people were injured and shops forced to close when troops beat people in Jerera in the same province. The crackdown is also beginning to be seen in Harare and Chitungwiza.

Moyo said the MDC was facing an inevitable demise at the election that was why the party was all of a sudden dragging its feet on elections. Moyo insisted the State was taking regular national security measures to defend the country. He said “the scenario which saw the formation of the MDC by foreign forces through the Westminster Foundation while security forces watched helplessly was a mistake that the security forces must not allow to happen again.

“Security forces must in fact be commended for waking from their slumber,” the Zanu (PF) spindoctor said. “We expect the

securocrats who were sleeping on the job when this happened to wake up. Now if they wake up and start doing things which make you realise that they are awake, don’t start saying there is militarisation. There is no militarisation. It’s people who are doing their jobs who should have done it 10 years ago.”

So is this strategy working? It’s impossible to tell. There are very few opinion polls in Zimbabwe and there is a suspicion that those that are carried out ignore the rural areas where the battle is being fought. The polls that have been done by pollsters such as the Afrobarometre and the Mass Public Opinion Trust have given Mugabe 10 percent of the vote. The threat of war will win few votes in towns and cities. Most condemn the violence and will be more determined than ever to vote for change.

But one analyst says that the freebies being dished out from diamond loot will be a vote-winner for Robert Mugabe. He says the diamonds have buoyed Zanu (PF) and boosted its confidence. Unlike the past two years where Zanu (PF) has been bankrupt and teetered on the verge of collapse, the diamond cash could be more powerful and help in fulfilling unfulfilled promises of the past, as it meets rural peoples desperate need for inputs.

On the other hand, the reaction of the besieged MDC structures in the urban areas could go either way. The only accurate measure will be an election itself. Mugabe has not announced the dates yet and the groundwork is still being done, with the head of the electoral commission relocating to take up a full tie post in Harare from Namibia where he was a judge. Originally due midyear, they might not be held until September, when a referendum on a new Constitution is expected. The MDC wants only a presidential election and not a legislative vote, which it insists is due in 2013.