consultations with the Judiciary Service Commission (JSC) and Parliament’s Committee on Standing Rules and Orders. The then Chief Elections Officer (CEO), Constance Chigwamba was re-posted to the Public Service Commission from 1 March 2018, and Mr. Utoile Silaigwana was appointed as the Acting Chief Elections Officer. Two fundamental changes and appointments were made six months before the elections at a time when a new voter registration exercise was underway. Development partners such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Electoral Institute for the Sustainability of Democracy in Africa (EISA) and International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) provided technical support in areas such as voter education, voter registration, communication, stakeholder engagement meetings amongst others. The African Union (AU) also provided technical support in facilitating training of election officials and printing of election manuals. The ZEC was able to carry out all stages of the electoral process in accordance with the electoral timelines provided in the Electoral laws. Though a bit late the, ZEC came up with a comprehensive Elections Calendar, with timelines for implementation of electoral processes. The ZEC made concerted efforts to engage electoral stakeholders. ZEC convened observer and media briefings; CSOs and FBOs briefings as well as Multi Party Liaison Committees (MPLCs) were established to resolve problems through dialogue and assist in the implementation of the Code of Conduct for political parties. c) Biometric Voter Registration On the 8th of September 2017, the then former President of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, ordered a new registration exercise in the country. The order designated the period between September 14, 2017, and January 15, 2018, as the period in which the new voter registration exercise would take place. On 14 September 2017, the ZEC started BVR. The process was carried out in 4 phases, for 72 days and a mop-up blitz was conducted between 10 January and 8 February 2018, because of requests for an extension from civil society organisations and following a landmark high court ruling that allowed Zimbabweans of foreign descent, formally referred to as aliens to register as voters. During the BVR exercise, lesser kits were allocated to Harare and Bulawayo, and this could have had an impact on the number of registered voters’. Other issues witnessed during BVR include; intimidation of registrants through recording serial numbers on the voter registration slip, collection of slips. The ZEC registered 5,695 706 voters’ and provincial registration statistics are indicated in table 3 below; Table 2: Registered Voters’: Province Province Bulawayo Harare Mashonaland East Mashonaland Central Registered Voters’ 258 567 900 728 633 410 531 984 14