Party Politics, Violence, Impunity, and Social Injustices in Zimbabwe (1980–2022)

The chapter focuses on abuses of the human rights of mainly opposition party activists in Zimbabwe by the ruling party which infringe on the rights of the parties and their members. The study in this chapter is qualitative, using interviews selected purposively. 20 people were interviewed, amongst them party cadres from the ruling and opposition parties, victims of political violence, academics and social analysts. The study critically examines the victimization of opposition parties in Zimbabwe which started during first elections in 1980 and increased after the second elections in 1985 with evictions from compounds of people who were not members of the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF) party. The history of elections in Zimbabwe shows that the arrest and torture of opposition activists peaks during these periods. This chapter shows this through examination of critical historical periods marked by state-organized violence, egregious human rights violations and impunity that stretches from the Gukurahundi massacres (1982–1987), the 1990 elections, the violent land reform programme of 2000, the 2000 elections, the disputed 2008 elections, up to the fall of Mugabe in November 2017 and the subsequent violent post-2018 elections. The study found that country’s constitutional security institutions such as the police and army do their duty in favour of the ruling party and in some ways are complicit in committing political violence. Impunity and social injustices coupled with the breakdown of law and order at the instigation of the state through party/state conflation is a key finding of the study. The study is underpinned by retributive justice theory as the opposition is always at the receiving end of injustices in the broader context of a securocratic state that emerged following Independence in 1980.