as amended by this Bill refers to “forty-two days” and indeed the explanatory note to the Bill makes reference to “forty-two days”. It could well be an error and it needs to be corrected for purposes of consistency. • Nevertheless, the Commission may apply to the Electoral Court for a deferred date for the runoff election if the delay can be justified. • Only the two candidates with the highest vote will be eligible to contest the run-off election. It does not mean that they should contest – eligibility to contest simply gives one a right to contest, which right one may choose not to exercise at any point before the election. • This provision which refers to only two candidates with the highest vote is based on the assumption that the first round of elections can only ever produce a scenario where there will be two candidates with the highest votes. There is no allowance for the fact that there can be more than two candidates, for example in the event of a tie between the candidates with the secondhighest votes. This is most unlikely but a possibility nevertheless that should be accounted for in the law otherwise there will be problem since the provisions regarding the run-off election only cater for a scenario where two candidates are involved. In Ghana, their Constitution anticipates such a scenario so that a new election must be held within three weeks and if still there is no candidate with more than 50 percent of the vote, there will be another election until such time that a winner is found. This leaves the decision of the Presidency, a key office, in the hands of the voters. This brings into question Zimbabwe’s provision where the power to elect the President in the event of a deadlock is delegated to Parliament. ZESN urges that the decision should remain with the voters. The Presidency is too important an office to be delegated to Parliament. The Ghanaian scenario which leaves the decision in the hands of the voters is preferable. Parliament as Electoral College • There is a slight problem in paragraph (g) (iii) which states that where each of the run-off 10