Story Highlights
- 62% of Zimbabweans feel their standard of living is deteriorating
- 37% feel safe walking alone at night, the lowest since 2008
- 53% are convinced of the honesty of the elections
WASHINGTON, DC — Zimbabweans will go to the ballot box in the first presidential election in five years on Wednesday. This election comes as Zimbabwe’s economy is still grappling with headwinds, including a notoriously unstable currency that has fallen more than 50% against the dollar in the last month.
The outlook seems increasingly bleak for many Zimbabweans, as 72% say the economic situation in their city or region is deteriorating and 20% say it is improving. This is reflected in reported difficulties finding a job: 72% of residents said it was a bad time to find a job in their area.
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Short Summary: The current lead candidate is incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa, an 80-year-old former soldier and secretary of defense. Mnangagwa’s ZANU-PF party, which took office in a 2017 coup against then-leader Robert Mugabe, has held power for 43 years and has repeatedly been accused of crackdown and repression of opposition activists and party members.
While there are officially eleven candidates running for the presidency, Nelson Chamisa of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) is ZANU-PF’s main opposition partner, which narrowly lost to Mnangagwa in the 2018 election.
The standard of living falls: The Zimbabwean dollar has faced severe instability and pressures for decades, undergoing multiple revaluations and rebranding. The current issue lost 86% of its value in the first five months of this year, while nationwide inflation hit over 86% last year, among the highest in the world.
Despite improved GDP growth over the last decade, Zimbabweans still face economic problems. Less than three in ten Zimbabweans (29%) think their standard of living is improving, while 62% think it is getting worse. Likewise, only 4% of residents say they can live comfortably on their current income, while 44% say they have a very hard time on their current income. While economic conditions were difficult under Mugabe, Zimbabweans have become more pessimistic since Mnangagwa took power in late 2017.
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Economic problems have fueled exodus from Zimbabwe over the past two decades, and many have chosen to move to South Africa to work. About a million Zimbabweans work in South Africa, a situation that has drawn backlash from local South Africans in recent months.
Despite this growing hostility, residents’ desire to emigrate from Zimbabwe remains strong. Over a third of Zimbabweans, 35%, said they would like to move permanently to another country in 2022, the highest percentage since 2009.
Violence and corruption persist: Both criminal and state-sponsored violence puts an additional strain on Zimbabweans’ lives. The percentage of residents who say they feel safe walking alone has fallen sharply from a peak of 57% in 2015, and has fallen almost every year since then to 37% today.
Residents also raise concerns about crime within the country’s government and institutions. 68 percent of Zimbabweans believe corruption is rampant in their government, while 76 percent believe corporate corruption is rampant in Zimbabwe. In addition, Human Rights Watch found that torture and arbitrary arrests continued in 2022.
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Half of Zimbabweans believe in elections: After allegations of media bias and voter intimidation during the 2018 election shook Zimbabweans’ confidence in their elections, confidence has steadily increased. While that confidence has declined slightly over the past year, the 53% who say they are confident is at the high end of any measurement since 2010. The current level is also above the median for sub-Saharan Africa (46%).
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implications
Zimbabwe has long been seen as a symbol of economic mismanagement, having been plagued by painfully high rates of inflation over the past two decades. Soaring food prices, power outages and triple-digit inflation have put the economy in the spotlight in the upcoming election campaign. While Mnangagwa retains its top position, likely due to its control of state resources and power, difficult economic conditions have resulted in a very disaffected electorate that may seek new leadership.
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