The search for political legitimacy : ZANU-PF's mobilization techniques in contemporary Zimbabwe.

Abstract

This research took an ethnographic view in understanding the relationship between rural people and ZANU-PF in post-2000 Bindura South electoral constituency in Zimbabwe. I seek to understand the complexity with which rural people come to make political choices through discussing ZANU-PF’s techniques in the maintenance of political power despite the loss of political legitimacy. The complicity between ZANU-PF and rural people is uncomfortably created through these techniques which include mobilizing historical claims, youth violence on villagers, partisan distribution of economic resources, surveillance and spying to create subjects who conform to ZANU-PF’s political will. I have argued that rural people’s circumstances should be understood through an analysis of their everyday lives and livelihoods. Findings have shown that rural people make political choices because they are life choices there are slight possibilities for alternative political action in rural Zimbabwe.