Rural poverty fuels anti-government sentiment

Susan Mhanga, a 55-year old widow, choked back the tears as she contemplated her life. Three-years ago her husband succumbed to AIDS leaving her with five children to raise on her own and no savings to fall back on. She told IRIN she was forced to turn to commercial sex work to make ends meet. Her story of poverty and hardship is not unusual in Chikomba, a rural district 200 km southeast of Harare. But what could be significant is that in two weeks time, she has the chance to vote in a bye-election for a seat that up until now was considered safe for the ruling party. At 40, Mhanga’s neighbour Peter Gombo should be at the prime of his working life. But instead he has been made redundant after the Harare-based Willowvale car assembly plant shut down three months ago due to Zimbabwe’s harsh economic climate. “Like idiots we continue to watch silently while the future of our children is being ruined right before our eyes,” Gombo, now one of the village elders, told IRIN. With his few savings Gombo has started a poorly-paying small brick-moulding business. He, like Mhanga, are unequivocal over who is to blame for their circumstances. “For 21 years we have been groping and floundering in the swamp, but some among us still think we should continue to support ZANU-PF even when it has become all too clear that the ruling party has no solution to our problems,” he said. That kind of sentiment in a previously staunch ZANU-PF area could be cause for concern for the ruling party’s candidate, Bernard Makokove. He is up against the opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) Oswald Ndanga, to fill the seat left vacant by the death of Chenjerai Hunzvi, the combatative former leader of the war veterans’ association. Even fervent supporters of President Robert Mugabe such as Cecilia Ngoni agree that life has deteriorated in the rural areas. Ngoni, who said she would still vote for Mugabe in next year’s presidential election, resignedly agreed that the government could have done more for people in her district in the 21 years it had been in power. “It was good for the government to build the new schools and clinics for us, but they should have done more to develop the rural areas,” Ngoni said. What Mhanga fears is that a government - which in the past won handsome parliamentary majorities against weak opposition - will again turn to violence to retain its hold on power against the MDC, as it did in last June’s parliamentary polls, she told IRIN. At independence in 1980, Mugabe’s government understood that the neglected countryside was its key constituency, and earmarked development projects for the rural areas that had borne the brunt of the country’s liberation war. But a decade-long economic crisis - coupled with alleged mismanagement and corruption - have destroyed whatever social sector initiatives the government poured money into, critics charge. Zhenje Business Centre, deep in Chikomba communal lands, is one such example of the decay. While Mugabe and his officials offer various explanations for Zimbabwe’s economic woes - including “a conspiracy by British enemies” - poverty and underdevelopment have taken their toll on the thousands of small rural centres such as Zhenje. It is quite clear to any visitor to Zhenje that the majority of the households that surround it - or in any other rural area in Zimbabwe for that matter - no longer meet the minimum food requirements. Officially, 75 percent of Zimbabweans now live below the poverty line. In Zhenje, one simple illustration of that fact is that two of the community’s four grocery shops have closed due to lack of business. Growth points such as Zhenje were built to serve as centres of development in the communal lands. Schools and technical colleges were constructed to equip the rural people with skills to feed these centres. But failed economic reforms and controversial political policies by Mugabe’s government has scared investors and foreign capital away, leaving much of the rural infrastructure derelict. It has also left thousands of trained young people with no jobs, and little hope. The MDC, taking advantage of the grinding poverty and economic malaise, is building its campaign in Chikomba on public discontent with Mugabe’s administration. “We are explaining to the people how 21 years of ZANU-PF mismanagement and corruption have destroyed the economy,” Piniel Denga, the coordinator of the MDC’s campaign in Chikomba told IRIN. Denga, whose house was stoned by alleged ZANU-PF youths two weeks ago, said political violence had forced his party to resort to door-to-door campaigns carried out mostly under the cover of darkness. “ZANU-PF cannot explain to the people why they are poor and it is now resorting to violence and intimidation,” he said. Bright Makunde, ZANU-PF’s political commissar for Mashonaland East province which includes Chikomba, dismissed the accusations. Makunde told IRIN: “We have told our supporters to wage a peaceful campaign. Those who allege we are responsible for violence only want to tarnish our party’s image.” While admitting that people are facing extreme hardships, Makunde said ZANU-PF would explain how its controversial fast-track land reforms, to resettle the landless on white commercial farms, were designed to empower the people economically. In two weeks time, it will be proved in Chikomba whether ZANU-PF can still convince the people that land reform will address their hunger or whether growing poverty will turn the electorate against the governing party.