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Public Perceptions of Operation Murambatsvina in Zimbabwe
Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI)
March 01, 2006

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In mid-May 2005, the Government of Zimbabwe (GoZ) launched, with little advance warning, a massive ‘urban clean up’ campaign. The exercise was code-named "Operation Murambatsvina/ Restore Order" hereafter referred to as OM. Murambatsvina is a Shona word meaning literally: "one who refuses dirt." Initially, there were two separate ‘operations’, one on "Murambatsvina" and the second on "restoring order" but the two imperceptibly fused in the process of implementation and the twin campaigns are now commonly referred to as one.

The Government justified the program as a strategy to eradicate illegal dwellings and to clamp down on alleged illicit activities, including informal trade but especially foreign currency transactions in the black market. However, the programme attracted massive and overwhelming condemnation that forced GoZ to invite the United Nations to "see for itself." Analysts and other observers in and outside the country commented that the operation was carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, considering its negative impact on people’s livelihoods. The Operation was also criticized for breaching national and international human rights law provisions guiding evictions. Some commentators within Zimbabwe therefore renamed the crackdown as "Operation Murambavanhu" meaning "Operation Anti-People." The people themselves popularly referred to OM as a "Tsunami", illustrating the scale of its destructive impact.

What do Zimbabweans think about this crackdown? Do the direct victims of OM think differently about the critical issues troubling the country compared to the ‘mainstream’ public opinion? These are only two of the many questions that Round 3 of Afrobarometer survey of adult Zimbabweans sought to answer.

Method
The survey was conducted from 9 to 26 October 2005, that is, after operation Murambatsvina but before the senate elections of 2005. The survey covered both urban and rural segments of all ten administrative provinces in Zimbabwe. It was based on a double sample: a nationally representative random main sample of 1096 respondents and a purposive sub-sample of 104 respondents comprising victims of the Government’s Operation Murambatsvina/Restore Order. In both cases, respondents were Zimbabwean men and women of voting age. Because of disruptions to fieldwork by some unruly political elements, completion of the survey was aborted towards the end. We were able to collect 1048 interviews of the main sample and 64 of the sub-sample, totalling 1112 interviews overall. The Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI), a Zimbabwean non-governmental research organisation, conducted all fieldwork. 

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