Brian Sedze THE register to vote mantra, hashtags and the social media noises aimed at mostly urban youths and first-time voters is an irrelevant, useless and nonsensical concept if it is married to the concept of better economic circumstances, good governance, better public service and world-class infrastructure. We, the adults, are pushing an idea so divorced from their reality and perspective.
These youths don’t know a better Zimbabwe like we do and can’t even imagine better circumstances as most don’t know world-class cities and don’t know the culture of good governance. It needs a rethink as to date, we still face registration apathy and voter apathy from these youths.
At times, because of a high level of arrogance, the purveyors of the “new” refuse to explain the new and neglect to put a clear picture of the future so they can visualise it for choices.
A register to vote message and campaign design requires competencies outside our lawyers, activist journalists, entrenched and cultist politicians and very angry adults. This is an arena of political scientists, data analysts, social media influencers, strategy and innovation experts, marketing doyens, and behavioural change scientists working with the leaders.
It’s unfortunate that often, the self-anointed leaders of the campaigns have a tendency to believe they know everything, are impervious to criticism, prefer ego-driven cult-like status, at times externally influenced and often in it for selfish economic interests. It’s often outside in, not inside out format.
We as 40-plus adults must know that our hashtags and social media output is a complete waste of time, resources and intellect. The young urbanites do not follow elders on social media. We are so boring and we are not even on their friends or followers’ lists. We are preaching to the converted who are our mates who have made decisions about voting and who to vote for.
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There is absolutely no point to preach to ourselves. And as adults, we are jointly and severally responsible for this mess of political and economic failure that our country is. Our messages, therefore, are extremely serious to be taken seriously by the youth. We are simply not playful and engaging enough to capture their attention.
Our group of elders pushing the register to vote campaign is a wrong demographic stratum. The message is too serious. Instead, the strategy is to deploy the youth peers, influencers, fashionistas, musicians, student leaders and other trendsetters. They have the ears of the youths and the majority of first-time voters.
It’s unfortunate that when influential youths are identified, we adults want everything and accolades on that. We start taking ownership of the narrative. The influencer will become one of us adults and youths lose interest.
We need to put the youth strategy in place, offer guidance and let the youths be. There is a formula in the madness that can register success by engaging what we believe a contentless youths because a message should not be direct, but embedded for it to get traction in youths with a very low concentration span and high selective amnesia.
Imagine if “snake under grass”, “although apo”, “kopo” and so forth had been embedded in messages to register to vote. Entertainment is still valued immensely by the youths. We will feed them and clothe them, but they feed themselves on entertainment. In terms of youth followers, the socialites will beat angry adult politicians, lawyers and journalists.
The youth may know Citizens Coalition for Change leader Nelson Chamisa and President Emmerson Mnangagwa, but will struggle to name a few ministers, their councillor and local Member of Parliament. They may not even know what Mnangagwa or Chamisa actually represent to them. They are not engaged at all.
Adults must offer guidance to the youth and target their own message to deal with the already existing adult voting challenges of apathy, funding, democratic space, boots on the ground, information asymmetry and access to human resources. Delegate the actual youth communication strategy to their fellow youths.
As adults who are registered to vote, we do not turn up at polling stations. It’s enough problem for us adults to deal with.
On our adult message, the question is always: what change are we adults harping on about that the youth will relate with? Being uncomfortable is a signal that something must change before greater trouble arrives or just that things may spin further out of control.
These youths born after 1990 don’t know a better Zimbabwe, especially if they have never travelled to other first and developing countries. Coining a message of hope has to be futuristic, and big, hairy and auditions goals. At worst, scare them to bits.
Just for context, this was Zimbabwe my teenage years which no youth in Zimbabwe will experience and know we can be better: Milk, bread and eggs were delivered at the gate and paid monthend. It was an abomination to eat sausage and liver with sadza. Liver was strictly for breakfast.
The school buses that picked children would come right to five minutes’ walk to a bus stop. All buses had a schedule and came on time. Teachers had cars and houses. At lunch, Dairibord would deliver milk to everyone. We often got toothpaste for free. Our hospitals had medication and after dinner in a hospital, we got pudding or jelly.
Our grandmothers would get their monthly stipends without fail. Being a police officer was a very big job and nurses were the elite. We had only one nightclub and bottle store in the entire Redcliff, and so forth. Which of these youths know this Zimbabwe? They are comfortable in poverty because they don’t know better.
Our parents’ employers would come to plead with us to join their companies soon after Form 4. No one would worry after finishing Form 6 at Goromonzi High School. We used to fill up stadiums for sports, we had community play centres and gyms. We had no load-shedding and we drank water straight from the tap.
Our litter was collected on time. All council employees had houses. We had a powerful currency, we had mortgage, clerks (mabharani) could afford a house in low-density suburbs. All children under the age of 18 would be home by 6pm.
We had to hide our drinking from parents and smoking. But today, it now seems to be the norm. So without investing in a new message, it’s a waste of time.
The present message for registering to vote is defective because it will not shift the rules, has no signal of strategic intent, there is no strategic soothsay and stakeholder buy-in. It’s not positioned for speed and surprise and lacks simultaneous and sequential strategic thrust. The messengers are old with no youth traction. The platforms are completely irrelevant to youths.
The register to vote move requires massive investment in thinking and purposeful dedication to win as a team.