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Saturday’s by-elections showed that the rural-urban divide in Zimbabwean politics, while moderately weaker, is still the major factor in how people vote and which political party is likely to win seats.

A swing to Zanu PF did occur, but such was the lack of marginal seats in the Zimbabwean political firmament that this saw two seats change hands, both moving from opposition control to Zanu PF candidates.

Under the standard assessment methods, which look at swings in support, this made Zanu PF the winner.

There is already a lot of hoopla in some circles of the “CCC landslide”, but basically the CCC simply retained the bulk of the seats its previous incarnation won in 2018, although it lost a couple of Parliamentary seats and seems even further away from achieving a Parliamentary majority.

Essentially in Zimbabwe almost all urban seats are won by opposition parties and almost all rural seats are won by Zanu PF.

In this large block of by elections almost all the constituency seats and local authority seats were urban seats won by opposition parties in the 2018 elections and made vacant when two constituent parties of the 2018 MDC-Alliance, a different set up to the MDC-A that fought the by-elections as the successor of the MDC-T, recalled their MPs and councillors.

There were a handful of seats made vacant by the death of the sitting MP or councillor, but Zanu-PF was defending very little, while the overwhelming majority of the constituencies and wards were being defended by the opposition.

In the outcome Zanu-PF successfully defended all the seats it won in 2018, although these formed only a small fraction of the seats being contested, and managed to pick up two National Assembly constituencies, meaning that its two-thirds super majority in the National Assembly is now very secure.

It can cope with a couple of MPs being in hospital for example and still exist.

Zanu PF was campaigning to make inroads into the opposition majorities in urban seats. Those inroads were made, as the party moved from less than a quarter of the votes in many urban seats to something far closer to a third or a bit better.

However, Zanu PF remains easily the largest party in Parliament with an enhanced majority and the inroads made into opposition support, in percentage terms, means that its presidential vote is more secure and easier to defend when the general elections are held soon after the middle of next year.

A governing party with increased voting percentages and an increased majority in Parliament is very secure. So, while the opposition managed to defend most of what it won in 2018, it needs to do a lot better than a defence if it is to win a general election, and that the CCC, now obviously the major opposition party, distinctly failed to do.

While percentage polls were fairly reasonable for by-elections, they were still well below what can be expected in a general election so it is not that easy to use these results to predict the outcome of next year’s elections.

But assuming that those who did not vote would have voted in roughly the same proportions as those who did and these proportions are the ones that pertain next year, then Zanu PF will not just retain a two thirds Parliamentary majority, but retain it with a few spares and that President Mnangagwa will win his second term on the first round with an enhanced majority.

In many respects, after assessing how large an inroad Zanu PF had made into the urban vote, the main question was whether the CCC, the successor at least in terms of leadership and candidates of the 2018 MDC-A, or the new MDC-A, which for almost all practical purposes is the old MDC-T, was the main opposition party.

That appears to have been answered by the opposition voters mostly choosing the CCC. So at least we know who has the main opposition support in 2022.

This puts some pressure on the CCC leadership to behave responsibly and preferably constructively. While an opposition is not expected to agree with the Government, it is expected to criticise by offering something more positive, rather than just threaten violence if it loses.

It also strongly suggests that the CCC needs to rein in the councillors on the urban authorities it controls, and at least try and stop its councillors stealing.

The MDC-A must be the most disappointed of the parties, and again it needs to think its way through and create policies that can attract the opposition vote.

Like too many parties it was over-dependent on its now late leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, and not nearly dependent enough on a political programme.

This mistake, of making a party the personal possession of a self-appointed leader, is now being made by the CCC, to the extent that they even have a photograph of the party leader as an election symbol.

Zanu PF switched right over in 2017 and now has developed the structure that the successful ruling parties in democratic Africa have adopted.

Zanu PF, through the Government it forms, will no doubt continue to push forward with its Second Republic development agenda with no area and no person left behind, even those who vote against the party.

The by elections have shown that despite the huge inertia of the urban voter this does work, but perhaps more importantly does not lose votes. So pushing on with the development of the nation is certainly a good enough vote winner to generate large overall majorities.