Key findings
- More than eight in 10 Zimbabweans (83%) say they vote for candidates whose policies they agree with, rather than for candidates who give them gifts and money (33%) or belong to the same ethnic group (29%) or religious faith (20%). But more than half (54%) of citizens also "agree" or "strongly agree" that they vote for candidates from their own province (Figure 1).
- More men (90%) than women (76%) say they choose candidates based on their policies, an approach that is also particularly popular among older citizens (88%), those with secondary schooling or less (87%-88%), and citizens experiencing moderate lived poverty (87%) or no or low lived poverty (83%) (Figure 2).
- The inclination to vote for candidates from one's own province is stronger among rural residents (57%) than urbanites (48%) and among women (57%) compared to men (50%). Manicaland (36%) and Mashonaland West (46%) are the only provinces where this is not the majority view (Figure 3).
- Voting for candidates who give gifts and money or attend to personal needs, which is endorsed by 33% of respondents overall, is more popular in rural areas (36%) than in cities (27%) (Figure 4). Citizens with moderate lived poverty (37%) are more likely to favour this approach than those experiencing high or no/low lived poverty. Manicaland residents (44%) are almost three times as likely as their counterparts in Mashonaland West (16%) to say they would vote for someone who gives them gifts or money.
Most Zimbabweans say they vote for candidates whose policies they agree with, rather than for candidates who give them gifts and money or who belong to the same ethnic group or religious faith, a new Afrobarometer survey shows.
But a majority of citizens also say they favour candidates from their own province, suggesting political preferences along regional lines.
