Political analysts say the Al Jazeera “Gold Mafia” documentary which exposed alleged gold smuggling and money laundering by individuals who named-dropped President Emmerson Mnangagwa may not have any impact on voting patterns in forthcoming general elections.
In a recent interview with NewZimbabwe.com, political researcher Alexander Rusero said Gold Mafia trended on social media platforms but a greater part of the electorate was not on those platforms. Said Rusero:
As much as you cannot downplay the role of social media in electoral politics, Zimbabwe’s political balance of forces is still pretty much offline, and not online.
The country’s political gravitas is offline. Online discourses, exposes on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube where this documentary has been popularized remain elitist in the current scheme of things.
There is nothing much. I would not want to go into the documentary’s shortcomings but to then say, people would change their voting patterns or perception will be desperation.
This documentary can actually bolster Mnangagwa’s position in terms of loyalty in his party (ZANU PF); in terms of the Haves and Have Nots etc.
Another political analyst, Eldred Masunungure told the publication that corruption by the elites has been normalized and as a result, the Al Jazeera documentary did not induce enough shock to alter voting patterns. Said Masunungure:
Because corruption has been routinized in the country, there is not enough shock attendant on the ‘Gold Mafia’ exposés and therefore the impact on voting intentions may be muted.
The impact of the ‘Gold Mafia’ documentary depends on multiple factors, one of which is that the revelations are not entirely new except that people/voters did not have solid, irrefutable evidence as was provided by the documentary.
The corruption in the country, especially involving the ruling elite, has been so embedded and systemic that most Zimbabweans have become numb to the pervasive problem.
The other vital factor is the extent to which the revelations have been published beyond the urban areas and beyond the more politically sophisticated block of voters.
Is there a critical mass of politically conscious and alert citizens who can speak truth to power in the ballot box?
The Gold Mafia documentary exposed an alleged series of gold smuggling gangs in Southern Africa that help criminals launder hundreds of millions of dollars.
The gang members get rich while plundering their nations and keeping millions in abject poverty.
They use gold to turn dirty cash into clean, seemingly legitimate money for those with large amounts of unaccounted wealth.
The criminals do so by using a complex web of companies, counterfeit identities and fake documents.
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