Polling Day Environment
The 21st of July, 2017 was the polling day when the election was held. The electoral
environment was generally peaceful and people went to cast their votes with minimum
challenges. However, there were few incidences of human rights violations with intimidation
recording 88% and forced attendance to a political meeting after voting recording 12%. Heal
Zimbabwe visited 46 polling stations and within all the polling stations 2 cases of
intimidation were noted within the 100 metre radius were polling agents and ZANU PF youth
were writing down people's names after voting.
Figure 5: Balloting Day Human Rights Violations Recorded in Bikita West (21 January 2017)
As observed above, there were few cases of intimidation that were recorded on the polling
day as opposed to the pre-election campaign period. This proves that the balloting day was
peaceful and free from violence. However, the level of assisted voters raises concerns against
the background that before the Election Day, Heal Zimbabwe recorded cases where people
were told to declare themselves illiterate and be assisted by traditional leaders or ZANU PF
members to vote against their will.
10