Negative Advertising as a Strategy of Persuasion in the 2002 Presidential Election Campaign in Zimbabwe

Abstract

Zimbabwe's 2002 presidential election shall remain a fertile field of study for scholars in various areas of enquiry including rhetoric, the art of persuasive communication. The main reason for this is that the election generated so much controversy and interest, both locally and internationally. It is also true to say that this election attracted much more attention than ever before because of the emergence of a vibrant opposition party that offered the stiffest challenge to the incumbent president since the attainment of independence in 1980.The attention of scholars in rhetoric is drawn by the huge volume of rhetorical discourse produced in this election whose aim was to persuade voters to vote for a particular presidential candidate. It is the aim of this paper to examine the role negative advertising or persuasive attack played during the campaign period leading to the March 2002 presidential election. It provides a qualitative rhetorical analysis of major negative advertisements that were frequently used by the main contending parties, the ruling ZANU (PF) party and the opposition party, the MDC, in order to discredit the opponent. The researcher used mainly the print media as sources of the adverts that are analysed in this paper. The study shows that both negative candidate theme and issue (policy) theme advertisements were meant to induce negative images of the presidential candidates in the voters' minds. The central theme in the ruling party's negative advertising was that the opposition party leader was a sell-out or a stooge of imperialists who wanted to reverse the gains of the liberation war. On the other hand, the opposition party's negative advertising held the incumbent responsible for the socio-economic and political quagmire the country was in. The article argues that the sponsors of these advertisements believed that attack advertising played a significant role in influencing candidate choice.

Hunger and power: Politics, food (in)security and the development of small grains in Zimbabwe, 2000-2010

“…84 Adding to the surprise was the state humiliation in the recent constitutional referendum of February 2000 and the subsequent parliamentary elections in June of the same year. 85 In both these contests, the opposition MDC celebrated victories over ZANU PF in Matabeleland South province. 86 Significantly, these elections drew attention to the increased cases of local politicians using international food aid to win supporters.…”

A Rhetorical Analysis of the Presidential Election Campaign Discourse in Zambia

“…Studies on political discourse include the use of euphemisms and metaphors in political campaigns (Mihas, 2005), the syntactic and semantic properties of "Yes we can" (Bista, 2009), the use of hedging in political discourse (Fraser, 2010) as well as on the rhetoric of presidential election campaigns (Kangira, 2005). Van Dijk (2006) brings out some of the crucial socio-cognitive practices fundamental to the creation and understanding of ideological discourse.…”

Persuasive speech acts in the Namibian National Assembly

“…Attacks are persuasive when the speaker discredits his/her opponent by attacking an individual instead of the idea the individual may represent. Benoit and Williams (as cited in Kangira, 2005), describe persuasive attacks as "messages that attempt to damage the image (reputation, face, identity) of a person, group or organization…."(p. 44).…”

“…As mentioned earlier in this section that rhetorical attacks are messages that attempt to damage the image of a person or a group, following are two examples of persuasive attacks between political parties taken from a Presidential Rhetoric article. According to Kangira (2005), in an election campaign in Zimbabwe, ZTV repeatedly screened Tsivangirai"s (MDC, Opposition leader) rally address saying: If you (Mugabe) don"t go peacefully, we will remove you violently. This statement serves as a threat in a form of a directive telling Mugabe to leave the presidency.…”

“…The repetitive screening was possibly made to persuade the voters that Tsivangirai was violent and will not be suitable for the presidential position. On the other hand, Kangira (2005) mentions that in one of its advertisements, the MDC asked a rhetorical question: The oldest president in history? This was a rhetorical attack based on Mugabe"s age.…”