With the economy in a chronic state of recession, runaway inflation at more than 100,000% (the highest in the world), a life expectancy of 37 (the lowest in the world), unemployment at 80% and persistent shortages of critical supplies, the state of the economy would to a large extent have influenced the decision of a significant number of voters.
Even that ‘common man' in the remote but ‘infamous' Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe would have voted not only for their patch of land but for the improvement of their economic circumstances.
It is possible to suggest that for the first time since 1980, Zimbabweans were driven by politics of the stomach; voting on issues of their sustenance than on sentiment.
Politicians are often in the suicidal habit of grossly underestimating the awareness of ordinary voters, especially those in the rural areas and their ability to pierce the veil between rhetoric and substance. When the basic choice is between food on the table and intangible ideals, that debate appears to have been settled by Maslow's theory of psychology and the hierarchy of needs.
There is no doubt that this watershed election was as much about the state of Zimbabwe's economy as it was about nationalism. The Zanu PF government has often argued the source of the economic crisis as the failure of neo-liberal structural adjustment programmes and later declared and undeclared sanctions by western governments as retribution for land retribution.
The Zimbabwean crisis is, therefore, argued as a bilateral dispute between Britain and Zimbabwe. The government's approach suggests that Zimbabwean crisis is about defending our sovereignty than it is economic. The opposition and the international community has in turn blamed that government of gross economic mismanagement and ruinous policies such as an ill planned land redistribution exercise, patronage spending in the war veteran pay-outs, involvement in an unbudgeted regional warfare in the DRC and the recent price control policy.
