judgement accordingly. It would also be free to propose to the authorities concerned such actions on institutional, procedural and other matters as would assist the holding of such elections. The Group is to submit its report to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, who will forward it to the Government of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, leaders of political parties and to all Commonwealth governments. Thereafter, the Final Report may be used to help inform relevant follow-up activities. Activities The Observer Group was present in Zimbabwe from 23 July to 6 August 2018. On 25 July 2018, the Group issued an Arrival Statement, which outlined its terms of reference (see Annex II). During four days of briefings, the Group met with the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, political party representatives, the Commissioner-General of Police, civil society groups, women’s groups, youth representatives, the media and the diplomatic community, as well as domestic, regional and international observer missions. Members of the Group observed the final rallies in Harare prior to Election Day. The Observer Group was deployed across the ten provinces of Zimbabwe from 27 July to 1 August (see Annex III). On deployment, teams met with election officials, security services, citizen observers and other stakeholders at the provincial, district and ward levels, as well as members of the public to build a comprehensive picture of the conduct of the process. On 29 July 2018, the chair of the Group attended a meeting of Heads of international election observation missions, held at the Rainbow Hotel, Harare. The meeting was chaired by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Electoral Observer Mission (SADC-EOM) and attended by the African Union, the Carter Centre, the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Observer Mission, the Electoral Commissioners Forum of SADC (ECF-SADC), the European Union, the International Republican Institute and National Democratic Institute (IRI-NDI) joint mission, SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC-PF), and the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Zimbabwe. The observer missions exchanged views on the conduct of the elections. On 31 July, the chairperson visited the Election Situation Room, which was established by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) and the Election Resource Centre (ERC), in co-operation with more than 40 other civil society organisations. 2