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In rally-intensive campaigns, the rally is an essential mode of political communication between politicians, parties and citizens. This article moves beyond the exclusive focus, in most literature, on rallies convened for presidents and presidential candidates to include similar rallies convened for others significant enough to act as a proxy but are not themselves presidential candidates. It develops a broader category of what it refers to as ‘bigwig' rallies. In Zimbabwe, the bigwig rally constitutes a distinct sub-genre that occupies a distinct place in election campaigning. I ask: what do parties communicate through bigwig rallies? How do they produce rallies to generate those communications? Little prior research considers what is particular to the rallies convened in electoral-authoritarian regimes. In this article, I ask: what do ruling parties in electoral-authoritarian regimes communicate and how do they achieve this? It answers these questions through studying ZANU-PF in Zimbabwe’s 2008 and 2013 elections.

ZANU-PF’s bigwig rallies as performative politics during Zimbabwe’s 2008 and 2013 elections