Commission, must conduct a special and intensive voter registration and a voters’ roll inspection exercise for at least thirty days after the publication day” (“publication day” is the day the Act for the new Constitution is gazette), this was not properly done, please see section on elections below. vi) Staffing of Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) was not agreed and not done. There was no agreement reached on this issue. ZANU-PF negotiators rejected MDC-T’s proposal to have ZEC staff recruited afresh by the new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission. ZEC key senior staff remained largely as the same team that managed the problematic 2008 elections. 3a. New constitution and referendum On 31 January 2013, the Parliamentary Select Committee (COPAC) published the final draft of the proposed Zimbabwean Constitution with 345 sections. Pre-Referendum environment On compliance with article VI of the GPA:17 • There was a consistent failure by the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) to adhere to the timelines stipulated in Article VI and the process lagged severely behind time. A process that the IG agreed would be completed in 18 months was extended to over 4 years; timelines were violated with impunity. • There was a general lack of sufficient and timely information from COPAC about the unfolding processes and developments resulting in the general population being largely unaware of the status quo. • Civil society organisations (CSOs) were largely side lined throughout the process as they failed to independently and actively participate in the formal activities organised by COPAC. During the stages in which they participated, such as the Second All-Stakeholders’ Conference, they did so largely as proxies of the three political parties to the IG, and there was little to no room for alternative input relating to issues that were of lesser concern to political parties, but of vital importance to other societal stakeholders. • The tampering of the draft produced as a result of the outreach process by the political parties to the GPA, and the subsequent finalisation of the draft constitution (including the “parked” issues) by the Principals was a process which was outside the mandate of, and which violated, the agreed Article VI process. • The fast-track adoption of the draft by Parliament without substantive debate, and the subsequent fast-track gazetting of the draft and referendum date after periods of such long delays in the earlier stages raised concerns and questions around the democratic and popular nature of scrutiny and debate of the draft. • Essentially 3 weeks were provided to disseminate, publicise and educate the nation on the contents of a voluminous and intricate legal document. The numbers of copies of the draft constitution, translations, and the simplified COPAC version, were insufficient to ensure comprehensive awareness of the draft. Concerns were also raised about the accuracy of the contents of the simplified COPAC version as compared to the full draft, as well as poor attendance at the sensitisation meetings carried out by COPAC. • COPAC representatives utilised public and donor funds not only to sensitise and educate the public on the contents of the draft, but also to actively encourage the public to vote “YES”. In addition, pressure was brought to bear on CSOs to sign a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) with COPAC in order to be allowed to carry out civic education under threat of disruption of activities of those without a MoA. Further, such organisations were made to agree to promote a YES vote. Such practices are inconsistent with fundamental rights and freedoms, and with democratic standards of 17 ZLHR, 15 March, 2013 Report 42