Liisa Laakso

Regional Voting and Cabinet Formation

Zimbabwe is one of the very few African countries which never introduced a formal one-party system. Against the aspirations of ZANU(PF) the Lancaster House agreement provided a multi-party system for a period of at least ten years, and after 1990 the one-party state was strongly opposed by most Zimbabweans. President Mugabe himself argued in 1993 that opposition parties are a stabilising factor in political systems in Africa (The Sunday Mail, 9 May 1993). However, it has been difficult for the opposition to get organized and to mobilize voters. In 2000 harassment and intimidation of the new and popular opposition party, the MDC, were rampant.

Research Debates in Zimbabwe: From Analysis to Practice

For the new government of Zimbabwe independence meant enormous expectations concerning social and economic equality, which in the increasingly harsh international economic environment were anything but easy to achieve. While the government wanted to adjust to the capitalist world economy, build on the state it inherited from the minority rule and reconcile itself with the white minority, it also called for a radical socialist and racial transformation. It is not surprising that high expectations and the opposing challenges of the new situation have also characterized the research on Zimbabwe’s performance.