Dr. Matchaba-Hove also said security and media laws limited freedom of assembly and speech. The Institute for Democracy in South Africa (Idasa) expressed concerns about the integrity of Zimbabwe's election. "We have concerns over the integrity of the election because aspects of the electoral process were not fully observed either by domestic and international observers, or party polling agents," Idasa executive director Paul Graham said. These aspects included the printing, distribution and auditing of ballot papers. People were also turned away in large numbers, which was significant in relation to the margin of victory in a number of constituencies. There were also "unexplained discrepancies" between figures announced by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the official results for some constituencies. Citing lack of transparency and external verification, a large number of Zimbabweans and the official opposition had no confidence in the election's outcome, Graham said.8 Thus, the polling has had a very mixed reception with SADC and other regional groups declaring their approval of the poll and the results, whilst most other groups have at the very least expressed reservations about the validity of the poll and the results. Did the pre-election climate affect the poll? However, although a number of the invited observer groups have expressed satisfaction with the poll and its result, it is clear that all these missions were only present in the country, as the AU says, “at the point of the ballot”. They are, therefore, not in any position to comment on the pre-election period itself, and, in the absence of any serious long-term observation, cannot refer to any data that they might have to drawn conclusions about both the pre-election climate or the relationship of this climate to the poll. Here we are talking about the effects of the pre-election climate on the overall participation of voters and their willingness to cast votes rather than the observation that the polling day was peaceful. The data obtained by the NCA on the pre-election climate puts the NCA in a unique position to analyse the effects on voting of the pre-election climate. The analysis below obviously can say nothing about the integrity of the electoral process – the technical aspects of polling – but can have much to say about the ways in which the behaviour of voters might have been affected. There are a number of preliminary observations that must be made here. Firstly, it is now common cause that elections in 2000 and 2002 were accompanied by exceedingly high levels of violence, and that these elections were challenged in the courts by the MDC, both on account of the violence and the alleged electoral irregularities 9. This has been explicitly accepted by the various observer missions and their conclusions that refer to the absence of violence as a criterion for accepting the 2005 elections pays testimony to this fact. Secondly, this violence associated with elections has had long-term consequences on the citizenry of Zimbabwe, producing what many commentators have termed “apathy”, but it is the view of the NCA that this “apathy” is better understood as “fear”. Such consequences have been well-documented by research on the violence of the 1970s and 1980s, and indeed was a major factor in the NCA making recommendations on impunity during the constitutional process between 1978 and 2000. Simply put, the near-genocidal proportions of the organized violence and torture wrought on Zimbabweans since 2000 have led to a climate of silence and fear, especially at the time of elections. Thirdly, all evidence indicates that the organized violence and torture has been perpetrated by 8 Sapa. Johannesburg 3 April, 2005. 9 See Redress (2005), ZIMBABWE: THE FACE OF TORTURE AND ORGANISED VIOLENCE. Torture and Organised Violence in the run-up to the 31 March 2005 General Parliamentary Election,LONDON: REDRESS TRUST. National Constitutional Assembly: THE 2005 PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION. FLAWED, UNFREE AND UNFAIR!