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Zimbabwe’s presidential election may or may not be over. Emmerson Mnangagwa has been declared the winner, but Nelson Chamisa, leader of the opposition, is challenging the results. Since the election last week, there has been violence and there may be more. Whatever jubilation some Zimbabweans felt is over, and those who felt betrayed by the result have ceased demonstrating their anger.
Zimbabweans have had a long, hard road, and they have reason to be distrustful of elections. We, who live in “this best of all possible worlds,” can view with compassion a far-flung, third world country where repression, violence and poverty have been a way of life since Robert Mugabe came to power forty years ago. Before that, the country was governed by Ian Smith who refused to give up white minority rule. Yet, despite their history, Zimbabwean voters went to the polls full of optimism and hope.
Zimbabwe’s peaceful future rests on the people’s consent to being governed. That requires confidence in free and fair elections, and trust in the ability and intentions of the country’s new leader. Those conditions seemed to exist on the day of the election. A day later, Zimbabweans had lost confidence in the election process amid claims of election tampering and corruption.
This is one more teachable moment available to us, if only we look with eyes clear enough to recognize how like the rest of the world we really are. What sets us apart from our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe is that we consent to be governed because we trust in the process that delivers our leaders. When that trust is betrayed, the likelihood of discontent and mob rage increases.
What happened in Zimbabwe is what happens in a democracy when the electorate loses faith in the fairness of the election process.
Nothing more is needed to convert the consent of the governed into the distrust and rage of a betrayed electorate.
Nothing invalidates a democracy more than exhorting the people not to believe what they hear on the news or what they see with their own eyes.
Nothing betrays trust in the election process more than the suggestion that elections are rigged and voter fraud rampant.
Nothing harms the democratic process more than a populist leader unwilling to contain or direct the enthusiasm of his followers—one willing to encourage contempt for the political process, the rule of law, and the peaceful interchange of ideas.
Political outcomes are not decided by facts on the ground. They are decided by what people believe.
How distant are we from electoral chaos in our own country? The condition is highly contagious. We live in a global world. Zimbabwe is just next door.
South African born writer, Neville Frankel, is the author of The Third Power about the transformation of Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, Bloodlines and On the Sickle’s Edge.
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