contributed to the collapse of the economy. Efforts to assist in addressing the land issue by the Commonwealth and other international partners, including through the Abuja Agreement on the Land Issue and Related Matters in Zimbabwe, did not make much progress. The 2000 and 2002 elections The political environment in the lead up to the 2000 Parliamentary Elections caused the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG), the custodian of the organisation’s fundamental political values, to take an interest in Zimbabwe. CMAG voiced its concerns over ongoing violence, loss of life, illegal occupations of land, failure to uphold the rule of law and political intimidation. Subsequently, the Commonwealth Observer Group which observed the 2000 Parliamentary Elections in Zimbabwe concluded that ‘obstacles were put in the way of opposition groups attempting to exercise freedom of expression and movement’. The Group also deplored the ‘violence and intimidation’ over the weeks leading up to the elections. When the Commonwealth Observer Group observed the 2002 Presidential Election, it highlighted that ‘while the actual polling and counting processes were peaceful and the secrecy of the ballot was assured, the Presidential Election in Zimbabwe was marred by a high level of politically motivated violence and intimidation, which preceded the poll’. The Group concluded further that the ‘conditions in Zimbabwe did not adequately allow for a free expression of will by the electors’. The Group further expressed concern over a flawed legal framework, the activities of paramilitary youth groups, the restrictions placed on civil society groups, and the disenfranchisement of thousands of Zimbabweans as a result of a lack of transparency in the registration process. Zimbabwe remained on CMAG’s formal agenda until its suspension from the councils of the Commonwealth in 2002, an event which precipitated President Mugabe’s withdrawal of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth in December 2003. The 2008 and 2013 elections The 2008 elections took place in a highly constrained political environment. These elections introduced the first real threat to President Mugabe's power in the form of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, which by then had also suffered a split. The MDC-T (led by the latter and therefore bearing the first letter of his surname), won the first round of the Presidential Election (as none of the parties achieved the 50 per cent plus one threshold). This outcome resulted in the unleashing of violence, allegedly at the hands of Mugabe and ZANU-PF, on MDC-T’s members and supporters. Consequently, Morgan Tsvangirai 6