The combination of a new and vibrant political opposition, the violent ‘invasion’ of largely white-owned farms, and the first of a series of deeply flawed elections transformed Zimbabwean political life in 2000. These dramatic upheavals require careful explanation. They were rooted in both the complex legacies of nationalist struggle and the socio-economic pressures of the 1990s, while their specific – and unusual – form was a product of two events that had reshaped the possibilities of Zimbabwean politics in 1997. The first of these was the Zanu(PF) government's decision to accede to the demands for material compensation made by veterans of the 1970s liberation war. The second was the designation of over 1,400 mostly white-owned commercial farms for compulsory acquisition by the state. Amidst expanding protest, strikes and economic decline, land and the legacies of war moved centre stage, creating a new set of political alliances, a shift in public discourse, and asserting the party's direct control over land as a political and patronage resource. What critical voices have termed the ‘crisis’ of 2000 and what the government has termed the ‘third chimurenga’ or uprising followed. In the next years, hundreds of thousands of black Zimbabweans moved onto what had been ‘white’ land, often under the leadership of veterans of Zimbabwe's war of independence. At the same time, veterans, the ruling party, and a shifting range of other groups worked to transform Zimbabwe's political sphere and state institutions through the propagation of an intolerant ‘patriotism’ and a violent practice known as jambanja.