hospitals and penitentiary institutions. In addition, the numerous amendments since its adoption in 2004 led to an Electoral Act with several shortcomings, ambiguities and inconsistencies, such as, inter alia, the procedure for tabulation and determination of results of the presidential election,16 the lack of effective enforcement mechanisms by the ZEC on campaign and media related violations, overly restrictive provisions on voter education conducted by persons other than the ZEC which even foresee criminal penalties for such activities if the stringent provisions of the Electoral Act are not respected, the absence of obligation by the ZEC to publish the results broken down to polling station level, the alignment of the 1995 Electoral Act Applications, Appeals and Petitions Rules with the Electoral Act, and the lack of defined mechanisms by the ZEC for examining and resolving complaints filed by citizens as provided for by s.239(k) of the Constitution. D Electoral System and Constituency Delimitation The 30 July 2018 Harmonised Elections were for the direct election of the president, 210 members of the National Assembly and local councillors. The presidential election is conducted under a majority run-off system: a candidate is elected if s/he wins more than half the votes in the single national constituency17; otherwise, the two candidates with the highest numbers of valid votes are to contest a run-off election not less than 28 and not more than 42 days after the polling day. The Constitution provides for a joint plurality party-list system for the parliamentary and provincial/metropolitan council elections. The election of 210 National Assembly members is on the basis of the FPTP system, while 60 National Assembly seats for women (six from each of the 10 provinces), 60 of the 80 Senate seats, and the 100 directly elected provincial council seats, are elected through a proportional representation party-list system, all linked to the same ballot. This additional proportional allocation of seats to parties based on votes won in the single-member constituencies may provide an added advantage to the largest party. The senatorial party-list system for 60 Senators, places female and male candidates alternately, and the list is headed by a female candidate. While the law provides for independent candidates, they cannot contest under the political party-list system. A total of 18 of the 80 Senate seats are indirectly elected Chiefs. Further, the 2013 Constitution introduced two Senators representing persons with disabilities elected by an electoral college (see section on Persons with Disability). Councillors of local authorities are also elected on the basis of FPTP, representing local wards. The Constitution stipulates that for electoral purposes, the State is divided into 10 provincial constituencies, 210 National Assembly constituencies and as many wards as the number of members to be elected to the local authorities concerned. Once every ten years, on a date fixed by ZEC as soon as possible after a population census, ZEC has to conduct the delimitation of electoral boundaries. According to the Section 161 of the Constitution, the boundaries of constituencies across the country should be delimited to achieve as far as possible an equal number of registered voters in 16 They are defined in two different parts, S. 37C and 110, which are not aligned with each other. In announcing the result for the presidential elections, ZEC announced on the basis of the percentage of votes secured in terms of all votes cast, including invalid votes. This is a less usual formulation, than expressing it as a percentage of valid votes cast. It is noted that the law is ambiguous in this regard. 17 8