“I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe’s dominance in Zimbabwean politics post-independence has led critics to argue that politics in Zimbabwe is personal and patriarchal. Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU PF)’s alleged use of violence, violent discourse, and other unorthodox power r...

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Main Author: Chibuwe, Albert
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Journal of Political Marketing 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377857.2017.1306822
http://hdl.handle.net/11408/3838
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author Chibuwe, Albert
author_facet Chibuwe, Albert
author_sort Chibuwe, Albert
collection DSpace
description Robert Mugabe’s dominance in Zimbabwean politics post-independence has led critics to argue that politics in Zimbabwe is personal and patriarchal. Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU PF)’s alleged use of violence, violent discourse, and other unorthodox power retention strategies have been used to justify claims that Zimbabwean politics is the politics of chaos. In this post-colonial (mis)reading of African politics, ZANU PF and Mugabe discourses have been labeled nativism, patriotic history, Mugabeism, grotesque nationalism, etc. However, these studies have either been uncritically pro- or anti-ZANU PF (Moore 2012). The paper, through an analysis of ZANU PF’s rebranding of Mugabe in the July 2013 elections, suggests a new multitheoretical approach to overcome this uncritical reading of Zimbabwe’s political branding practices. The suggested approach utilizes insights gleaned from sign theory, political branding and/or advertising theory,post-colonial theory, and decolonial theory.
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spelling ir-11408-38382022-06-27T13:49:06Z “I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe Chibuwe, Albert election campaigns political advertising Mugabe political branding ZANU PF Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe’s dominance in Zimbabwean politics post-independence has led critics to argue that politics in Zimbabwe is personal and patriarchal. Mugabe’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union–Patriotic Front (ZANU PF)’s alleged use of violence, violent discourse, and other unorthodox power retention strategies have been used to justify claims that Zimbabwean politics is the politics of chaos. In this post-colonial (mis)reading of African politics, ZANU PF and Mugabe discourses have been labeled nativism, patriotic history, Mugabeism, grotesque nationalism, etc. However, these studies have either been uncritically pro- or anti-ZANU PF (Moore 2012). The paper, through an analysis of ZANU PF’s rebranding of Mugabe in the July 2013 elections, suggests a new multitheoretical approach to overcome this uncritical reading of Zimbabwe’s political branding practices. The suggested approach utilizes insights gleaned from sign theory, political branding and/or advertising theory,post-colonial theory, and decolonial theory. 2020-10-22T11:14:36Z 2020-10-22T11:14:36Z 2017 Article 537-7857 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377857.2017.1306822 http://hdl.handle.net/11408/3838 en Vol.1, Issue 22; open Journal of Political Marketing
spellingShingle election campaigns
political advertising
Mugabe
political branding
ZANU PF
Zimbabwe
Chibuwe, Albert
“I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe
title “I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe
title_full “I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe
title_fullStr “I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe
title_full_unstemmed “I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe
title_short “I Am as Fit as a Fiddle”: selling the Mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in Zimbabwe
title_sort “i am as fit as a fiddle”: selling the mugabe brand in the 2013 elections in zimbabwe
topic election campaigns
political advertising
Mugabe
political branding
ZANU PF
Zimbabwe
url https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15377857.2017.1306822
http://hdl.handle.net/11408/3838
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