These “atmospherics” were developed from the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. These “atmospherics” are assumed to give a good indication of the “freeness” of the election climate during the pre-election period. The intention is not to examine the more formal aspects of the election, the “fair” component”, but to look at the experiences of ordinary citizens. The NCA has already made its own position clear on the legal and constitutional framework, the “fairness”, governing these forthcoming elections. Each “atmospheric” was defined by a number of questions. These questions were developed through previous experience with the kinds of election irregularities seen in recent elections in Zimbabwe. From the questions defining the “atmospherics”, an Election Irregularity EI score was derived, and, in the system developed, 18 scores or measures were derived. These measures were then summed to give an indication of the scale of the Election Irregularities that occurred or not in any given constituency. The value of this system was that it directly sampled the views of ordinary citizens during the pre-election period, and hence gave a good feel for their confidence in the “freeness” of the prevailing election climate. National Constitutional Assembly: THE 2005 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION. FLAWED, UNFREE AND UNFAIR!