This paper discusses the issue of flawed elections in Zimbabwe – where and why they have failed to meet the standards of credibility, fairness and freeness – and explores how to make them work by focusing on key issues and providing key messages for stakeholders and stockholders to engage with. The paper takes a forward-looking approach, focusing on long-term electoral contestation in the country and working within the current electoral system (as opposed to proposing a new one). The goal is to find a solution to the so called “national question” in Zimbabwe.

The problem with elections in Zimbabwe is that electoral outcomes are not reflective of the will of the people and the system that manages elections conduces to manipulation of the people’s willingness, ability and capacity to vote. The ruling party ZANU PF is a classic case of a political leadership that uses elections as a device to merely legitimate their illiberal and often highly oppressive regime. Key concerns include:

1. voter apathy and low participation;
2. perceptions of the electoral processes as being ineffective in manifesting voters’ wishes;
3. fear, naked power politics, violence, and impunity (e.g., the architecture of violence around elections);
4. militarisation and lack of citizen confidence on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC); and
5. the region’s continuous endorsement of fraudulent electoral processes.

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