24 IRI/NDI Zimbabwe International Election Observation Mission Final Report release of the voters roll, the procurement process for ballot printing, or observation of the printing of the ballots, the ZEC repeatedly and consistently chose the path of opacity. This failure to provide sufficient public information is contrary to international standards that require transparency for elections to be free and fair.18 Moreover, these failures damaged public confidence in the ZEC and its ability to administer the polls in an impartial manner. Constituency Delimitation Equal suffrage is an essential element of an election.19 While true equality in the delimitation of electoral boundaries may not always be possible, best practices maintain that variances should rarely exceed 10 percent. Section 161 of Zimbabwe’s constitution reinforces the principle of equality of suffrage by delimiting, as far as possible, an equal number of registered voters in each constituency and caps the permissible deviation at 20 percent. For electoral purposes, Zimbabwe is divided into 10 provincial constituencies, 210 National Assembly Constituencies, and 1,958 ward level constituencies. The Constitution stipulates that once every 10 years, the ZEC must conduct a delimitation of electoral boundaries exercise. Unfortunately, the last boundary delimitation process occurred before the 2008 elections and therefore, constituency delimitations do not represent the most recent census figures. Therefore, significant deviations exist in the size of constituencies for National Assembly elections. For example, in 106 out of 210 constituencies, the number of registered voters varied by more than 20 percent. The redrawing of constituencies would have represented an important step forward in holding democratic elections in alignment with international best practices and respecting, inter alia, the principle of equal suffrage.20 Prior to the 2023 elections, constituency delimitation must be carried out to ensure that all eligible citizens have equal opportunity to participate in the electoral process. 18 Para. 19 of the 2011 UNHRC General Comment 34 to Article 19 of the ICCPR calls on states’ parties to proactively provide access to information on issues of national importance. 19 International and regional treaties state that elections must respect equal suffrage. See paragraph 21 of the 1996 United Nations Human Rights Committee General Comment 25, which provides that “[t]he drawing of electoral boundaries and the method of allocating votes should not distort the distribution of voters or discriminate against any group and should not exclude or restrict unreasonably the right of citizens to choose their representatives freely.” See also the Code of Good Practice in Electoral Matters, I.2.2: “Equal voting power: seats must be evenly distributed between the constituencies. […] iv. The permissible departure from the norm should not be more than 10%, and should certainly not exceed 15% except in special circumstances (protection of a concentrated minority, sparsely populated administrative entity).” ACHR, art. 23. 20 The total number of registered voters for the 2018 elections was 5,683,936. The average number of voters per constituency should therefore have been 27,066 voters. The permissible (though undesirable) variation of 20 percent has the result that the maximum and minimum number of voters in each constituency should not exceed 32,479 registered voters per constituency or be less than 21,653. The distribution of voters on the 2018 roll is such that out of 210 constituencies, 104 are within the permissible deviation margins and the remaining 106 are either over or underrepresented. For instance, the total number of eligible voters in the largest constituency in the country, Harare South, equals 76,425 voters and is more than five times that of the smallest constituency, Gutu North in Masvingo, which has 14,198 voters.