5. Comparisons between Presidential Elections, 2002 and 2008 As indicated above, given the similarity between these findings and those previously reported for the 2002 Presidential election, it was decided to make a formal comparison to the two elections, 2008 with 2002. 671 complete cases were available on the Human Rights Forum’s data base from the 2002 Presidential election, and these were then compared with the 610 cases from the 2008 elections, giving a total of 1,281 cases, which is a large sample for such comparison. As can be seen from Figure 4, the general trends seen in the two elections are similar, but there are clear differences. The number of alleged violations is higher in 2008 for the three Mashonaland Provinces, but only significantly higher for Mashonaland West.37 The increase for Harare is clearly very large between 2002 and 2008, and is significant. 38 Reports from Manicaland and Masvingo were more frequent in 2002.39 However, the trend towards the worst areas of violence being in the Mashonaland Provinces maintains over both Presidential elections. Figure 4 Comparison of reports per Province: 2002 versus 2008 In 2000, the point was made by the Human Rights Forum that it was perplexing to have so much violence reported from the areas in which ZANU PF had always enjoyed strong support since 1980. 40 37 2008 v 2002: Mashonaland West [p=0.001]. 2008 v 2002: Harare [p=0.001]. 39 2002 v 2008: Manicaland [p=0.001]; Masvingo [p=0.01]. 40 See again Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum (2001), Human Rights and Zimbabwe’s June 2000 election, HARARE: ZIMBABWE HUMAN RIGHTS NGO FORUM. 38