two national elections. But the electoral process continues to be marred by serious irregularities; and the government’s tactics of intimidation are still being used to silence political opponents. The “New” Electoral System On August 17, 2004, the heads of state of the Southern African Development Community, which includes Zimbabwe, signed the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. These principles and guidelines constitute a benchmark against which to judge the March 31 election. Since SADC adopted these guidelines, the Mugabe government has enacted two new electoral laws—the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) Act and the Electoral Act. Unfortunately, neither law satisfies the SADC Guidelines. Instead, both laws reinforce retrogressive electoral measures that the government introduced in the 2000 and 2002 elections.5 The ZEC is not an impartial, independent, or inclusive supervisory body. Moreover, by the time it began to operate, many of its key functions—notably voters’ registration and the compilation of the voters’ roll—had already been exercised by the same discredited partisan electoral bodies that had performed those tasks in the prior elections. Consequently, the processes of registering voters, delimiting electoral districts, and providing for the inspection of voters’ rolls were conducted in a non-transparent and discriminatory way. In addition, the ZEC Act restricts the right of NGOs to provide voter education and prohibits NGOs from receiving foreign funds for voter education. These provisions violate freedom of association and voters’ right to information, as mandated in the Constitution of Zimbabwe and in the SADC Guidelines.6 The Electoral Act has some positive features, notably one-day polling, vote counting at polling stations, and the use of only fixed (and not also mobile) polling stations.7 However, it is a measure of the lack of trust in the electoral institutions that the opposition and the independent Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), both of which had supported these reforms, now fear that they will be used to favor the ruling party. The Electoral Act also removed the president’s power to introduce electoral regulations by statutory instrument. However, the Act did not alter the retrogressive 5 Human Rights Watch. “The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Bill: Will It Improve the Electoral Process?” Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, November 2004. 6 Human Rights Watch. “The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Bill: Will It Improve the Electoral Process?” Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper, November 2004, especially pp.15-16. 7 Mobile polling stations were difficult to monitor and gave rise to suspicions of vote rigging. 5