IRI/NDI Zimbabwe International Election Observation Mission Final Report 9 or other public events that allowed candidates to articulate their differing political opinions or platforms for voter reference. The campaign environment was generally peaceful with political parties largely free to campaign across the country prior to Election Day. This was a marked improvement over previous elections. Of note, all presidential candidates endorsed a well-publicized Peace Pledge. However, the campaign was not without violence. The most significant event was a grenade attack on a rally held by President Mnangagwa on June 23. There were widespread incidents of threats of violence, including so-called “soft intimidation” to coerce voters into supporting ZANU-PF (such as reminding citizens of the 2008 violence and saying it would return unless the ruling party won the presidential race in the first round). In addition, there were extensive reports of efforts to undermine public confidence in the secrecy of the ballot, such as rumors that the BVR system could be used to identify how someone voted and reports of officials demanding to see and record individual voter’s registration numbers, leading the voter to believe that his or her vote would be tracked. The ruling ZANU-PF relied heavily on state resources in campaigning with little differentiation between the state and the party. As a result, there was a massive disparity in funding levels between ruling and opposition party candidates. Efforts were made to use the courts to prevent the abuse of state resources. While a lower court initially ruled that ZANU-PF should not use state resources for campaigning, the Supreme Court ultimately dismissed the case on technical grounds. There were also widespread reports of the partisan distribution of government food aid and agricultural inputs to coerce support for the ruling party. Traditional leaders (i.e. chiefs and headmen) are explicitly forbidden from engaging in political affairs under the 2013 Constitution. However, in some rural areas, traditional leaders regularly led voters to doubt the secrecy of the vote, required villagers to attend ruling party rallies, and encouraged villagers to vote for the ruling party, often implying repercussions for not doing so. The Electoral Act provides for the establishment of Multi-Party Liaison Committees (MPLCs) at the national, provincial, constituency, and ward level. The MPLCs are intended to bring together political parties with the ZEC to discuss election-related matters. However, the national MPLC met infrequently and generally did not serve as a forum where decisions were made, undermining its effectiveness. Only 15 percent of candidates standing for directly elected parliamentary seats were women. Under the 2013 Constitution, 60 proportional representation National Assembly seats are reserved for women, but this quota will sunset ahead of the next election. Just 17 percent of candidates for local authority elections were women. Female candidates, party activists, election officials, and voters continue to face violence and intimidation because of their gender, including attacks in social media against women candidates for president and other offices. Youth, like women, also continue to be marginalized, though there was a dramatic increase in the registration of younger voters. Little has been done to make voting on Election Day accessible to PWDs, with efforts to introduce a tactile braille ballot being unsuccessful. Significant concerns exist about the role of the military in Zimbabwean politics. While the Zimbabwe Defense Forces (ZDF) stated that it would not interfere in the elections, it did not clearly commit to respect the outcome irrespective of the winner. Trust in the EMB was undermined by a significant number of former military personnel serving in ZEC management positions. While there are pro-government and opposition newspapers, television and radio (including community radio) are dominated by stations that are either state-owned or owned by supporters