ZESN Report on the 31 July 2013 Harmonised Elections The voters’ roll which, in many ways, is the essence of the poll and is the poll’s foundational document, is compiled by the Registrar-General of Voters (RGV) under the supervision of the electoral commission which can only supervise the RGV as he discharges this function. This applies to both the continuous voter registration as well as the mobile voter registration exercise. The process was inadequate and ZEC had no choice but to go into the election with a voters’ roll that it had not been responsible for compiling. The new Constitution provides for ZEC to have total control of the voters’ roll, including its compilation and any work done on the voters’ roll, however for the purpose of this election, the Registrar General would continue to play his role in voter registration. For the purposes of an election, section 10 (1) of the Electoral Act gives the commission the power to recruit staff from persons in the employment of the state and to train and deploy them and of course, to ensure their non-partisanship. In April 2013, at a meeting with ZEC, the MDC-T protested ZEC’s appointment of ward youth officers, widely believed to be ZANU-PF supporters, as polling officials during the referendum and called on the commission to avoid the practice of using partisan staff.25 This echoed previous concerns about the partisanship of senior ZEC staff. Unlike previous elections, ZEC staff had more of a presence at provincial and district levels in the lead up to the elections. However, it is still the Registrar-General who appoints constituency registrars. ZEC should have more permanent and semipermanent field staff that are responsible for recruiting and managing staff on Election Day. In terms of stakeholder management in 2013, ZEC did well to keep most stakeholders updated about its activities with regard to the election. Since 2012, the commission held regular workshops for the media, for the police and other electoral stakeholders, to update them on its state of preparedness and train them on various aspects of the process. For example, on 18 June the ZEC chairperson briefed members of the media on election reporting. On 3 July ZEC also conducted training for chief election agents to train them on the procedures that would be used during the election. Various briefings and updates for observer groups were also held. THE PRE-ELECTION PERIOD The pre-election period effectively began on 19 March when the results of the referendum were announced, paving the way for the long-awaited elections. On the one hand there were continued calls from ZANU-PF that elections should be held at the earliest date following the end of the life of the 7th Parliament on 29 June 2013. On the other hand, the MDC formations and other observers countered that there could be no elections without reforms, and that legally, the elections could be held as late as 25 ‘‘MDC demands changes at ZEC’ - Nehanda Radio 23 April 2013. 25 | P a g e