The June 24–25 elections registered the growing opposition among working people in city and countryside to the policies of ZANU-PF and its leader, President Robert Mugabe. The government's failure to carry out a thoroughgoing land reform, and an economic crisis heightened by imperialist domination, have fueled political polarization in this southern African country.

The result was an unprecedented rebuke to ZANU-PF, which has governed the country since independence in 1980 on the basis of its record as a leading actor in the fight to end British colonial rule and bring down the white-minority regime of what was then Rhodesia. Among other results, at least seven cabinet ministers lost their seats in Parliament.

Voter turnout was high at 60 percent, as against about 30 percent in previous polls. Since independence, opposition parties have never held more than a total of three seats in the national legislature.

ZANU-PF's majority is expanded by the 20 seats in the legislature filled by individuals nominated by the president and the 10 selected by local chiefs.

Presidential elections are scheduled for 2002. MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, a former trade unionist, has already declared he will challenge the ZANU-PF candidate in that race.

The MDC won the majority of seats in urban areas, with most rural districts going to ZANU-PF. The opposition party said it would contest 20 seats awarded to ruling-party candidates.

Public divisions quickly surfaced in the ruling party following the poll. "Clearly there is a revolution taking place," said Chenjerai Hunzvi, the leader of the war veterans association that has carried out government-supported farm occupations since February and who was himself a ZANU-PF candidate. "The party has to rejuvenate. To meet the challenge we need an overhaul from the grassroots to the top."

The Financial Gazette, published in Harare, reported June 29 that "several new ZANU-PF legislators and provincial heads this week said they will pressure President Robert Mugabe to relinquish the party's leadership within six months to allow for the election of a new leader who would rejuvenate the party and prepare for state presidential elections in 2002."

The MDC, formed less than a year ago with the backing of the labor movement, has won support from many working people in face of a spiraling economic crisis. The country's debt to the imperialist powers is $4.9 billion. Belt-tightening programs demanded by London and Washington have resulted in rising prices for basic goods, high inflation and 50 percent joblessness.

The MDC also received support from some white capitalist farmers--who control 70 percent of the country's most fertile, arable land--and imperialist backers in the United Kingdom, United States, and South African businesses. These forces see the opposition party as an empty canvas on which they hope to paint a picture of continued debt pillage and defense of existing property relations in the country, where half the population is made up of landless peasants. The MDC has said little about land reform, other than declaring that it wants "national dialogue" on the issue.

An army of "observers" sent by the United Kingdom, United States, European Union (EU), and others descended on the country prior to the election. In a violation of Zimbabwe's sovereignty, they declared they would pronounce whether the election was "free and fair." This marked a continuation of the imperialist campaign, led by London, to press for an outcome to its liking. The EU delegation, for example, said that the term free and fair "was not applicable" in the poll.  
 
 
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