declared member of the National Assembly shall remain as a member until the conclusion of the case. In total, twenty petitions against the National Assembly results have been submitted, a remarkable decrease in comparison to the number of petitions filed following the 2013 Harmonised elections.109 In particular, two were filed in each of the constituencies of Chegutu West, Goromonzi West, Tsholotsho North (the petition concerns the allocation of seats according to the PR system in Matebeleland North province), and one each in the constituencies of Mutare North, Murewa South, Kariba, Bindura South, Mutasa South, Zvimba East, Zvimba South, Bulawayo South, Kwekwe Central, Chimanimani West, Mhondoro-Mubaira, Chipinge East, Mutare Central and Chikomba Central. They have been brought by MDC Alliance (9 cases), ZANU PF (4), independent candidates (3), MDC-T (2), NPF (1) and People’s Rainbow Coalition (PRC) (1). ZANU PF is a respondent in twelve petitions, while MDC Alliance in five; one petition was filed against the National Patriotic Front (NPF) by the MDC Alliance. The two petitions lodged by the MDC-T challenge the proportional allocation of seats in the Senate and the women’s quota to the National Assembly respectively. Worth noting is the petition in Chegutu West Constituency, where the ZEC erroneously declared Zanu PF’s Dexter Nduna as the winner of the National Assembly elections instead of MDC Alliance’s Gift Konjana. Nduna had initially been announced as the winner with 10.932 votes, however, the MDC Alliance candidate who had polled 10.828 votes challenged the result and was able to provide evidence that there was a discrepancy on the figures, which ZEC afterwards confirmed, due to a transcription error from v23A forms to v23B forms during data capturing.110 ZEC stated that the law does not permit reversing a declaration once made, therefore leaving Konjana with no choice but to approach the Electoral Court for relief. In the meantime, another candidate in the same constituency, Shingirai Bobo of the People’s Rainbow Coalition (PRC) also approached the court, challenging the ‘declaration’ of Konjana as winner; yet Konjana was not declared to be the winner by the court. iii. Post-Electoral Offences Following the announcement of presidential election results and the incidents of violence in Harare, it would appear there was a serious clampdown on people from the opposition political parties, especially the MDC Alliance as well as independent candidates or supporters. In particular, 27 MDC Alliance supporters, agents and employees were arrested in Harare on public violence charges. They appeared in court on 6 August and were eventually released on bail the following day. The Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights reported on offering legal support in at 109 Following the 2013 Harmonised elections, a total of 101 petitions challenging the National Assembly and local council election results had been lodged. This year’s decrease is even more astonishing considering the significant reduction of the security costs that petitioners have to pay within seven days of filing, as per s.168 (3) of the Electoral Act. 110 It was reported that the results of Konjana and another candidate one Kache Simon were interchanged. Instead of capturing Kache’s results as one vote and Konjana’s as 121 votes, they were reversed giving Kache 121 and Konjana one vote. Upon the correction, Konjana’s total would go up to 10.949 votes, 17 more votes than Nduna. 46