abroad to vote in the March Referendum and the general elections scheduled thereafter regardless of whether or not they were in the service of the government. On 22 May President Mugabe through the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act proclaimed 28 June 2013 as the date for the sitting of the nomination court and 31 July 2013 as the Election Day. In response to this proclamation, the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai issued a statement calling the proclamation an attack of the Constitution. He said his response would be to challenge the proclamation in the Constitutional Court, as it was a matter governed by law. Please follow this link for the audio of the full statement18. An audit of the Elections 31 July 2013 The Election Roadmap was signed at Harare on 6th July 2011 by the six party negotiators and subsequently endorsed by the party principals and SADC. The election conducted on the 31st July 2013 was fraught with very serious breaches of Zimbabwe’s Electoral Act, Constitution and SADC Guidelines. The manipulation of the electoral process by Zanu PF and its functionaries within Government and the military had a defining impact on the result. An analysis of Reports produced by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, civil society organizations; views of ordinary Zimbabweans, professionals and lawyers identified a number of breaches, which included the following baseline: Breaches relating to the Electoral Act and Constitution Pre-election 1. Illegal proclamation of the Election itself President Mugabe’s proclamation of the election date was in breach of section 31H of the previous Lancaster House Constitution (which provision was still in force at the time the proclamation was made) in that he did not consult the Cabinet before making the declaration, as he was obliged to. 2. Illegal use of the Presidential Powers Act and regulations to amend the Electoral Act On 13th June 2013 President Mugabe amended the Electoral Act by means of three Electoral Amendment Regulations (Statutory Instruments 87, 88 and 89 of 2013). He made these amendments in terms of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act. The amendments introduced wideranging changes to Zimbabwe’s electoral law and practice. In doing so President Mugabe was in breach of Section 157(1) of the Constitution and Section 4(2)(c) of the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act itself. These both specifically state that the Electoral law cannot be made by regulations promulgated in terms of the Presidential Powers Act and must be made by a specific Act of Parliament. 3. Breach of Section 6(3) of the 6th Schedule as read with section 155 (2) (a) of the Constitution Voter registration exercise Section 6(3) of the 6th Schedule of the Constitution states that “the Registrar General, under the supervision of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, must conduct a special and intensive voter registration and a voters roll inspection exercise for at least 30 days after the publication day) of the new Constitution)”. The Registrar General of Voters seriously breached this provision across the country. Most urban centres across the country were affected. The Registrar General located insufficient numbers of registration centres in urban areas, often in remote sites where the processing of applications was extraordinarily slow. This resulted in tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of citizens effectively being disenfranchised countrywide because they were not given an opportunity to register in urban areas. Serious anomalies resulted because of this with, for example, rural provinces such as 18 https://soundcloud.com/human-rights-forum/press-statement-by-prime http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/worldafrica-22889406 46