A New Twilight in Zimbabwe? The Perils of Power Sharing

Issue Date April 2014
Volume 25
Issue 2
Page Numbers 52-66
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So far, most analyses of Zimbabwe’s 2013 elections have focused more on whether the contests were rigged than on why four years of power sharing failed to level the electoral playing field. In the author’s view, there are two main reasons that power sharing undermined—rather than enhanced—the prospects for democratization in Zimbabwe. First, there were significant flaws in the structure and the implementation of the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA), the three-party accord that governed the power-sharing arrangement. Second, power sharing brought the opposition into government, reducing its ability to run as an outside challenger and making it difficult for the party to claim credit for concrete policy gains.

About the Author

Adrienne LeBas is assistant professor of government at American University. She is the author of From Protest to Parties: Party-Building and Democratization in Africa (2011).

View all work by Adrienne LeBas