The People's Choice? Post-Election Urban and Rural Zimbabwe

* Dr Bill Kinsey, Economics Department, Free University, Amsterdam.
* Dr Debby Potts, Geography Department, School of Oriental and African Studies, London.

Following the achievement of African majority rule in 1980, Zimbabwe was left with many unresolved problems, but was nonetheless considered to be a leading economic and political force in Southern Africa. Since the early 1990s, the country and its people have experienced numerous economic and political setbacks culminating in its recent violence-prone national election. The election revealed a rural-urban divide in opinion that many outside observers find hard to reconcile with the Zimbabwean people's well-known practice of rural-urban circular migration. What is the current situation in rural and urban areas? And what are the economic and political aspirations of the Zimbabwean population in the post-election period?
Both speakers have published extensively on economic and political issues in Zimbabwe over the last two decades.