HARARE – Sixty-three percent of Zanu PF supporters say Zimbabwe’s government is “performing badly on addressing youth needs,” a new Afrobarometer survey released on Thursday shows.
The disapproval rises to 95 percent among supporters of MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa, according to the poll.
Overall, 77 percent of Zimbabweans say the government is performing “very badly” in creating opportunities for young people, with job creation (53 percent) top of citizens’ priorities, followed by education (14 percent) and job training (14 percent).
The survey’s results will alarm President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF party ahead of elections in 2023 when the youth vote is expected to be pivotal.
A majority of citizens also say they would support a government decision to make people pay more taxes in order to help young people.
Negative assessments of the government’s performance on youth are particularly widespread among urban residents (80 percent) and men (81 percent). More than seven out of 10 citizens across all age categories express the same sentiment.
Almost six in 10 citizens (58 percent) say they would support a government decision to make people pay more taxes in order to support programmes to help young people.
Support for more taxes for youth programmes is stronger among women (61 percent) than men (55 percent), among Zanu PF supporters (63 percent) than MDC Alliance loyalists (49 percent), and among rural residents (63 percent) than their urban counterparts (49 percent).
Citizens with post-secondary education (52 percent) are least likely to endorse higher taxes to support programmes to help young people.
Afrobarometer in Zimbabwe, led by the Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI), interviewed 1,200 adult citizens in April 2021 for the survey. A sample of this size yields country-level results with a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points at a 95 percent confidence level, MPOI said.
Previous Afrobarometer surveys were conducted in Zimbabwe in 1999, 2004, 2005, 2009, 2012, 2014, and 2017.
