Gift K. Mawire

Zimbabwe has been in election mode for as long as anyone can remember. The billboards may come down after polling day, but the politics never stop. Every speech, every reshuffle, every whisper in the corridors of power feels like a prelude to the next vote. The country seems trapped in a cycle where governance is merely an intermission between elections. A perpetual campaign without an end.

Right now, Zimbabwe’s political map is divided into four familiar camps. There are the pro-Mnangagwa loyalists, who see President Emmerson Mnangagwa as the custodian of stability and pragmatism. There’s the pro-Chiwenga faction, quietly anchored in the military, waiting for its turn at the helm. Then come the Chamisa faithful, who see Nelson Chamisa as a messianic figure whose time has merely been delayed, not denied. And finally, there’s the exhausted middle. Those on the fence, weary of slogans and empty promises, focused more on survival than on politics.

But this endless election mode is not just a political strategy. It’s a condition of national being. Every generation since independence in 1980 has lived under the long shadow of unfinished liberation. The war for independence, known as Chimurenga, gave Zimbabwe a founding myth built on sacrifice and sovereignty. Yet, as Frantz Fanon warned in The Wretched of the Earth, postcolonial elites often inherit the colonizer’s machinery instead of dismantling it. Power changes hands, but the system: hierarchical, patronage-driven, and militarized remains intact.

ZANU-PF, born out of that liberation struggle, has governed through its own mythology for over four decades. The language of the revolution: “sovereignty,” “imperial interference,” “defending the gains of independence” is invoked every election cycle to maintain legitimacy. Each poll becomes not a contest of ideas, but a replay of the liberation war in rhetorical form. Opponents are framed as sell-outs or puppets of foreign powers. The ballot, once a symbol of freedom, has become an instrument of continuity.

When Robert Mugabe was removed in the military-assisted transition of 2017, many Zimbabweans believed they were witnessing a rebirth. Mnangagwa promised a “Second Republic,” a break from the past. But the country soon returned to familiar patterns: contested elections, factional whispers, and a restless opposition led by Chamisa, whose charisma hasn’t translated into institutional strength. Today, even within ZANU-PF, the succession question looms like an unending storm cloud. Mnangagwa versus Chiwenga, the politician versus the soldier. The war veterans’ legacy still defines the battlefield.

Political theorist Antonio Gramsci once observed, “The old world is dying, and the new one struggles to be born; now is the time of monsters.” Zimbabwe exists in this in-between. Not quite the revolutionary republic it once imagined, not yet a modern democracy. The “monsters” here are not mythical beasts but political habits: factionalism, militarization, and the inability to move beyond survival politics.

Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence. The haunting thought that everything repeats itself endlessly  captures Zimbabwe’s predicament. Each election brings the same promises, the same protests, the same accusations, and the same disappointments. The faces change, but the cycle endures. Hope flares briefly, then fades.

The cost of this permanent campaign is immense. Real governance suffers. Economic reform becomes secondary to political optics. Civil servants are mobilized as campaign workers. Even foreign policy turns transactional, focused on optics of legitimacy rather than substance. Investors time their engagement around election cycles, knowing that stability is seasonal. Meanwhile, citizens grow cynical retreating from politics into survivalism or migration.

This is not a uniquely Zimbabwean story. Many post-liberation states in Africa from Angola to Mozambique face the same struggle between liberation memory and democratic renewal. The difference is that Zimbabwe’s political class has perfected the art of living inside that tension, turning the unfinished revolution into a permanent justification for power.

And yet, amid the fatigue, something is shifting. The young generation, unburdened by liberation nostalgia, views politics with a mix of scepticism and irony. For them, “sovereignty” means access to jobs and stable currency, not slogans about the past. They may not rally behind any party for now, but their quiet defiance seen in social movements, satire, and digital activism signals the slow birth of a new political consciousness.

The challenge for Zimbabwe is to rediscover the moral purpose of politics beyond power. The liberation war was fought for dignity, not domination, for self-determination, not self-preservation. The next phase of liberation must be internal. A liberation from fear, from cynicism, and from the tyranny of endless campaigns.

There’s an old Shona saying: chara chimwe hachitswanyi inda. One finger cannot crush a louse. The message is clear. Nation-building requires unity of purpose, not perpetual rivalry. Zimbabwe must learn to govern between elections, not merely survive until the next one.

Until then, the country will remain in motion but never move forward. A republic forever rehearsing democracy, but never quite performing it.