Election campaigns have kicked off as various areas in Zimbabwe are set to hold by-elections. There have been intensified drives especially on social media with various organisations offering incentives to the youth to register to vote. On top of the list is Twitter, a social media platform that is being used to garner for votes and encourage young people to register But youths in rural areas are being left behind in this process.

This resonates with 19 year old Kundai Chinamasa who stays in Zhombe Midlands province, who believes that as rural based youth they are sidelined in political conversations with politicians only considering them when its election time. “A lot of us in Zhombe can’t access social media like Twitter where most of these voting and political conversations are taking place. Network is terrible not to mention prohibitive data costs. We can’t afford to be spending time and money trying to access voter related material in as much as we want to be involved,” she said.

The by-elections are pegged for 26 March 2022 and harmonised elections in 2023. There is a total of 133 elective vacancies, 28 being parliamentary seats and 105 council seats emanating from recalls deaths or dismissals. The recalls are of MDC Alliance’s elected officials, who were accused of joining a rival party led by Nelson Chamisa .The Electoral Act stipulates that those eligible to vote for local authority elections are those who had registered before the death or recall of the councilor. The Zimbabwe Constitution, section 20 provides that the State and all institutions and agencies of government at every level must take reasonable measures to ensure that youths have opportunities to associate and to be represented in political spheres.

According to the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, 67% of Zimbabwe’s population are youths. Youths have the power to drive the social and political terrain in the country and their involvement in political processes is key. In 2023, 10 parliamentary seats have been added to the current 270, the 10 being for youth representatives. But youths continue to face challenges such as unemployment, unaffordable education and lack of access to health care due to excessive poverty. Those in rural areas’ plight is compounded by the fact that their regions are marginalised. According to Freedom House, there is a magnified the gap between urban and rural areas when it comes to access to information. . In 2019, the internet penetration rate in rural Zimbabwe stood at only 10% according to the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (POTRAZ).

Tanatswa Moyo (not her real name),23 said that the biggest challenge they are facing as youth in rural Zimbabwe is that they are forced to vote into power people they don’t want. “I have developed a negative attitude towards elections and electoral processes. I don’t see how they can ever help youths like me who are in the rural part of the country. If you don’t align yourself to a certain party you won’t access presidential inputs. You won’t even be allowed to access other things that come with different donor organisations. I feel, voting is a useless exercise, unless and until things change in rural areas and we can freely express our political choices, voting will never work,” she said. She hinted that she does not intend to vote in the coming 2023 elections.

Kundai added that like every other person in Zimbabwe, rural youths want to be involved more, to have job opportunities, to have a better chance in life. But she said that there are serious political divisions which need to be addressed first. “The reason most youths in rural areas are scared to participate and vote is because of issues of violence. Youths are being used as perpetrators of violence, there is need to apply rule of law so that whichever party you are affiliated to, if you violet human rights the law takes its course,” she said.

A report by the Youth Empowerment Transformation Trust (YETT) which assessed issues influencing youth participation in elections and decision making in Zimbabwe showed that a significant proportion of the youth living on the margins of the economy and society are facing multiple structural barriers that can obstruct them from registering to vote or casting their vote even if they are interested. It confirmed that many rural youths have no adequate documents required for registration. Nor do they have the financial resources needed to acquire the documents, including transport fares and the payment fees for acquiring birth certificates and national identity cards (IDs).

Youths in mining districts are further affected by the gold rush which often times mining is their only source of livelihood. In order to access and practice informal gold mining, known as “kukorokoza” they have to align themselves to the ruling political party ZANU-PF. The gold rush plays a critical part in youths participating in electoral processes as allegations are rife that youths are then influenced to vote for ZANU-PF to guarantee access to mines which are controlled by the ruling elite. Moreover, these youths are said to be used to perpetrate violence against anyone else who supports opposition parties.

Nkosilathi Emmanuel Moyo Director of the Zimbabwe Organisation for Youth in Politics (ZOYP), said “most youths are not interested to vote but more in pursuing the next gold rush. This is caused by poverty and exclusion, youths are not that involved in policy formulation and decision making. Some are now losing faith in elections and are looking for means to survive.” He highlighted that very little has been done to mobilise the rural youth to register to vote. Reasons being financial constraints and very poor road infrastructure with some areas still being considered no go areas for certain political parties and CSO work is misconstrued as political party advocacy. Although other stakeholders like political parties who have control in those areas have been mobilising rural youth to vote, more needs to be done.

Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) Senior Advocacy for Electoral Reform Officer Heather Koga said that they have realised that most rural youth are not on social media due to limitations like data costs and smart phones. The organisation is therefore trying to go to some of these rural areas physically and make use of organisations within the communities that are dealing with the youth. “We also make use of other platforms like community radio stations to spread information about voter education. More registration centers are in the rural areas because the larger population is there. We intend to use musical jingles because most youths find music very appealing so we will make it an instrument to use in voter registration. We will continue to support youth organisation so that no youth is left behind and we will share information in different forms.   We want to ensure that there is sufficient voter education in rural areas that is not influenced by political parties,” she said.

The need for increased face to face engagements was also recommended by another Zhombe youth, 27 year old Humphrey Nyama. He said such engagements will help fellow youths, especially informal miners realise the importance of exercising their democratic right to vote. “Informal gold panners need voter education because they become comfortable with the money they make. They become unconcerned or ignorant about what’s happening around them, yet so many of them are dying because of unaddressed safety issues plaguing the mining industry. Politicians need to address such issues to make mining safe and properly formalized,” he said. Humphrey said that he is a registered voter and will vote in the coming elections. “I encourage the youth to vote, don’t let fear stand in your way. We are not in a battle against any political party but we are in a battle against unemployment and corruption. Every sector in Zimbabwe needs improvement talk of education and health and other sectors. We want transparency and accountability, so every youth should put that in mind and go and vote,” he said