the electoral process was in line with Article 3(d) of the African Union Declaration on the Principles Governing Democratic Elections in Africa, which encourages member states to safeguard the human and civil liberties of all citizens including the freedom of movement, assembly, association, expression, and campaigning as well as access to the media on the part of all stakeholders, during electoral processes. In addition, Article 4.1.6 of the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections enjoins state parties to “Promote necessary conditions to foster transparency, freedom of the media; access to information by all citizens; and equal opportunities for all candidates and political parties to use the state media.” The ZHRC observed that a few months preceding the general election, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) responsively encouraged all political parties and candidates to bring forward their advertisements to be aired on the national broadcaster. This was however at a cost and therefore did not translate into equal State media coverage opportunities for all political parties. The ZHRC observed that the 2018 harmonised elections signified an improvement in terms of access to media coverage of political players, in both print and electronic media. However, some shortcomings were that the state media coverage was not fair, providing more coverage to ZANU PF over other parties. This was evidenced from ZHRC monthly media monitoring reports on elections which indicated that state radio stations, the national television station, and state newspapers visibly covered more material for the ruling party as compared to other parties. Social media such as Facebook, Whatsapp and Twitter were used as communication platforms during the 2018 elections. Some of the positive attributes of the use of social media for such a national process related to promotion of participation of the electorate, boosting voter turnout, soliciting feedback from the public and where possible ensuring views of the public are taken on board. The ZHRC used social media to increase visibility and raise awareness on human rights during the electoral period. In turn, the Commission received numerous complaints particularly through the Whatsapp platform, which the Commission investigated and resolved. However, the ZHRC was concerned about transmission of inflammatory messages and hate speech against some contesting candidates using social media, in particular, Twitter. The Page 25 of 55