While the specter of violence looms heavily over this weekend's polls in Zimbabwe, the country is likely to avoid an outbreak of the lethal ethnic unrest which followed Kenya's elections. Zimbabwe's government and opposition have evoked parallels with the tragic events in Kenya where President Mwai Kibaki's disputed re-election triggered a bout of violence between different tribes which has claimed around 1,500 lives. Both former British colonies whose borders were drawn with scant regard to ethnic or tribal divisions, Zimbabwe and Kenya appear on the surface to be weighed down by similar baggage. But even in Matabeleland, home of Zimbabwe's minority Ndebele ethnic group where opposition to President Robert Mugabe is strongest, few see ethnicity as playing any part on how they will mark their ballot paper come Saturday. “I don't see ethnicity playing a role in the elections,” said political analyst Takavafira Zhou. He said that shifting population patterns meant that areas could not be easily defined along ethnic lines. “Especially in Matabeleland there are many ethnic groups there including Shonas who have fled to Bulawayo. It will be a question of personalities.” Mugabe, who has led the ex-British colony since independence in 1980, owed his ascendancy in part to being a Shona, the country's largest ethnic group. Joshua Nkomo, the other towering figure of the liberation war, was Ndebele. Mugabe's two main challengers at Saturday's poll - opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and former finance minister Simba Makoni -- are also both Shona. Welshman Ncube, a senior opposition lawmaker who represents Bulawayo in parliament, is among those who have actively supported Makoni after backing Tsvangirai in the 2002 presidential elections. He said that while the region felt it had suffered as much as anyone from Zimbabwe's economic woes, there was no sense of an ethnic backlash towards the dominant Shona group. “It is quite obvious that there is a general feeling in Matabeleland that the system has not treated the region fairly and that the region will vote against the government in power,” Ncube said. Matabeleland also bore the brunt of a government campaign against political “dissidents” which left an estimated 20,000 dead in the early 1980s. Although the repression campaign was politically-motivated, some here believe there were many people victimized over their ethnic orientation. But according to a Bulawayo-based human rights activist, speaking on condition of anonymity, there was much stronger regional rather than ethnic discrimination from the government in Harare. “Regionalism is an issue rather than ethnicity, especially in Matabeleland which... has always voted for the opposition,” said the activist. Even with the split in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, analysts do not see the ruling party making inroads into the region, leaving the real battle on Saturday between Makoni and the Tsvangirai. Themba Dlodlo, a lecturer at a local university, said ethnic differences are not going to be an issue in the crucial vote “because there is a collapse of everything, regardless of where one comes from.” “In the past the people in this region have not always voted for the ruling party in large numbers, (but) in this election the people are united against Mugabe.” __
