Respect for Political Rights Including the Right of Citizens to Change Their Government: Elections and Political Participation Summary The old constitution provided citizens with the right to change their government peacefully, Section 23A of the new constitution under which the 2013 elections were held explicitly provides for the right to vote. Despite the affirmation the right was restricted in practice. The political process continued to be biased heavily in favor of ZANU-PF, which has dominated politics and government and manipulated electoral results since independence in 1980. During the 2013 harmonised elections held on 31 July 2012 there were substantial electoral irregularities reported by domestic and regional observers, which rendered the result not to be a credible expression of the will of the Zimbabwean people. The election was reported to be a culmination of a deeply flawed process. There were irregularities in the provision and composition of the voters roll. The political parties had unequal access to state media. The security sector did not safeguard the electoral process on an even-handed basis and the government failed to implement the political reforms mandated by Zimbabwe’s new constitution, the Global Political Agreement, and the region. In detail The Electoral Reform section of the SADC Roadmap listed six activities, five of which all parties agreed on. There was no consensus reached with ZANU-PF in relation to the sixth. The six activities coupled with their outcomes are listed as follows: (i) enactment of agreed electoral amendments. This was partly done having taken effect well after the August 2011 deadline, by the enactment of the Electoral Amendment Act of 2012. But this signified only a start, as a result of the provisions in the new Constitution for proportional representation, and elected metropolitan and provincial councils, extensive further amendments to the electoral law have become essential under Legislative Agenda [see G. below] (ii) voter education – 30 days duration (iii) mobilisation for voter registration – 60 days duration (iv) preparation of new voters’ roll – 60 days duration (v) inspection of voters’ roll – 45 days duration The above were either not done or impartially done: (ii) to (v) which were agreed on were closely related activities that required special voter registration efforts. However nothing substantial was done until the mobile voter registration exercise, which took place between on 29 April and 19 May. There is a special provision for voter registration in paragraph 6 of the Sixth Schedule of the new Constitution: “The Registrar-General of Voters, under the supervision of the Zimbabwe Electoral 41