the President. Consequently, other political parties were not able to meticulously verify the proposed boundaries, and compare this information with proposed wards against the voters roll. ZANU PF had an unfair advantage of having access to the delimitation report ahead of other political parties. Eight years later, during the 2008 harmonised elections, the Delimitation Commission conducted a process that was heavily criticised. It was carried out in terms of section 4(1)(h) of its enabling Act. Of particular concern was the failure by ZEC to carry out its educative mandate after the boundaries were set. The public was not adequately and timeously informed about the delimitation of constituencies and the comprehensive changes in boundaries. Knowledge of the new constituencies and wards was not widespread prior to polling day. The Delimitation Commission reported to the President on 14 January 2008. The President promulgated the boundaries on 1 February 2008 despite the fact that copies of the proposed boundaries had not been made available to the public beforehand (or even to members of the House of Assembly and the Senate, who could only have access to one copy) for inspection and comment.7 This left inadequate time for voters to establish their ward and constituency boundaries and subsequently inspect the voters’ roll. For other stakeholders such as civil society, there was limited access to information about delimitation of boundaries that was insufficient for purposes of comprehensive voter education and review/analysis. The setting of election boundaries is critical as it also affects the allocation of polling stations in the different wards. If delimitation is carried out late, the list of polling stations will inevitably be published late with no time to sort out mistakes, or adequately review and rectify any anomalies. In 2008, this was done on 8 March 2008 – 20 days before polling day - in compliance with section 51 of the Electoral Act requiring information about polling stations to be provided at least 14 days prior to the polling date. Although ZEC had promised to set up 11 000 polling stations, the location of only 8 212 were published on that day. Information was jumbled, and incorrect in some cases, and amendments had to be 7 See SI 11/2008. 5|Page