The ruling ZANU-PF and newly formed Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) are the biggest political parties in Zimbabwe accounting for a combined 86 percent of the following, a latest Afrobarometer study has shown.
Afrobarometer is a survey research network that provides data on Africans’ experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life.
A national partner in each country conducts the survey and in Zimbabwe, the Afrobarometer surveys are conducted by the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI).
Speaking during the dissemination of the Round 9 survey in Bulawayo Tuesday, MPOI senior researcher, Stephen Ndoma said 44 percent of Zimbabwean support ZANU-PF while 42 owe their allegiance to the CCC.
Fieldwork for Round 9 in Zimbabwe was conducted between 28 March and 10 April 2022.
“Six in 10 Zimbabweans (61%) say they “feel close to” a political party,” said Ndoma while presenting the findings.
“Among those who identify with a political party, ZANU-PF (44%) and CCC (42%) are virtually statistically tied.”
According to the survey, only one percent of the respondents said they were affiliated with other political parties while 13 percent refused to answer the question about their affiliations.
Looking at party support per province, in Mashonaland Central, for example, 15 percent of the people support CCC while 64 are loyal to ZANU-PF while in Manicaland 75 percent of Zimbabweans support CCC while 19 percent are for ZANU-PF.
According to the same research, Zimbabweans are not happy about their socio-economic circumstances and want bread-and-butter issues to be addressed.
“Citizens lack faith in government institutions and view some of them as corrupt,” said the MPOI researcher.
He further said: “About half (49%) of citizens disapprove of the performance of the President. Disapproval of the president’s job performance is most pronounced among poor citizens. Half (50%) of respondents approve of the performance of their local government councillor.”
