With regards to the parliamentary elections, ZANU-PF won 144 constituency based seats
and were awarded 35 women’s seats on a proportional basis by province for a total of 179.
This is 66.3% of the total seats in the National Assembly. The MDC Alliance won 64
constituency based seats and was awarded 24 women’s seats on a proportional basis by
province. For the remaining three seats NPF and an independent candidate each won a
constituency based seat while MDC-T was awarded one women’s seat on a proportional
basis by province. If the three NDF, MDC-T, and independent MPs in the National Assembly
all vote with the MDC Alliance MPs then together they can prevent ZANU-PF from having a
two-thirds majority and being able to unilaterally changing the constitution.
The MDC Alliance, however, could have performed much better in the parliamentary
elections. There are 11 constituencies in which the MDC Alliance field two candidates and in
three of those constituencies the two MDC Alliance candidates together received the most
votes meaning that if the MDC Alliance had fielded only one candidate the party likely would
have one (Bulawayo South, Goromonzi West, and Harare South). There are another 11
constituencies where ZANU-PF won less than 50% of the parliamentary vote, but one the
constituency where Chamisa won the most votes in the presidential election. This suggests
that if the MDC Alliance had formed more alliance with other parties and had reduced the
number of parliamentary candidates that the MDC Alliance could have picked up another 11
constituency based seats. Finally, there is one constituency (Zvishavane Ngezi) where
Chamisa received more votes than Mnangagwa by more than the ZANU-PF candidate beat
the MDC Alliance candidate in the parliamentary election plus votes for other candidates.
This calls this parliamentary result into question. Thus, it is possible that MDC Alliance could
have increased its tally of constituency based seats by 15 from 64 to 79 (plus a related
modest increase in women’s seats awarded on a proportional basis by province).
Description of ZEC Presidential Results by Polling Station Files
On Friday 03 August the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) provided ten electronic files
containing the polling station level results for the 2018 presidential election.
The files contained results for 10,985 polling stations.
For each polling station the files contained: location information (province, district,
constituency, local authority, ward, polling station name, polling station code), votes for each
of 23 presidential candidates, rejected ballot papers, unaccounted for ballot papers, total
votes cast, and total valid votes. A total of 34 pieces of information.
The file do not contain information on the number of registrants, the number of ballot papers
issued, the number of unused ballot papers, or the number of spoilt ballot papers for polling
stations.
For this analysis the results for the individual polling stations were extracted from the original
files and only the polling station data itself was used. None of the aggregate figures for ward,
constituency, or province were used. Only polling station results themselves.
Missing Information from the ZEC Presidential Results by Polling Station Files
The files should contain 373,320 pieces of information (10,980 polling stations times 34 piece
of information). Actual information included in the file was 372,955 or 99.9% of expected
information. In total, 365 pieces of information or 0.1% was missing.
One polling station name was missing;
Three polling station results for Busha, Joseph Makamba, FreeZim Congress were
missing;
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