3.9.4 In Murehwa South Constituency, the campaign team for the ZANU PF Parliamentary candidate was threatening to inflict harm upon competing parties, in particular the supporters of independent candidate Noah Mangondo. Intimidation cases by ZANU PF Chairpersons were also received in 6 Constituencies whereby they threatened communities of a repeat of the violence of 2008 if people voted for the opposition. Such complaints were received in areas that included amongst others; Hwedza South Constituency, Maramba Pfungwe Constituency, Murehwa South Constituency, Goromonzi North Constituency, Mazowe South Constituency and Mazowe Central Constituency. Some of these areas are historically violent hotspots from previous elections. It therefore appeared during the 2018 elections that the problem still existed in these areas. 3.10 Partisan Distribution of Food Aid and Presidential Agricultural Inputs The Constitution safeguards the rights of all persons including the right to equal protection and benefit of the law. Section 56 (2) of the Constitution lists the grounds on which people must not be unfairly treated, inclusive of not being unfairly discriminated on the basis of political affiliation. Furthermore, Section 56 (4) (b) provides the meaning of discrimination to include “according other people directly or indirectly a privilege or advantage…” Within the same vein, vote buying which can be equated to bribing a voter to exercise his or a vote in a particular manner is prohibited by the law.18 Bribery is an election offence which unduly influences voting patterns to favour a particular political party or candidate, thereby violating the right of the electorate to freely vote for candidates of their choice. The ZHRC received and investigated numerous complaints of partisan distribution of food aid and Presidential inputs which it recorded as cases of vote buying. The findings of the investigations by ZHRC confirmed allegations made by complainants 18 Section 6 (g) of the Electoral Act Fourth Schedule on the Electoral Code of Conduct for Political Parties and Candidates and Other Stakeholders Page 28 of 55