8. Tsvangirai as a presidential candidate has consistently drawn more votes than his political party in all elections. This means that some voters are voting for other parties in the opposition, or for ZANU PF at House of Assembly level, and then voting for Tsvangirai as their presidential option.89 9. The split in the opposition vote cost the two MDCs 17 seats in the House of Assembly in 2013 (See below for more details of constituencies). This almost tripled the 6 seats lost in the House of Assembly in 2008, owing to split votes.   In 2013, these additional 17 seats would have ensured that the balance of power was less in favour of ZANU PF and would have reduced the significance of their 2/3 majority to one seat only, as follows: o Taking the proportional representation seats into account, and reallocating the 17 seats lost to a split vote to the opposition, the balance of power in the House of Assembly would have been:  Out of 270 seats ZANU PF: 180 66.6% OPPOSITION: 89 33.0% INDEP (ZPF): 1 0.4% This would have meant that ZANU PF would have needed a totally full House to pass any changes to the constitution, for example. As it now stands, they have a comfortable 34 seats over the 2/3 majority, holding 79% of all seats. 10. A united opposition would have had control of 4 provinces out of ten, instead of only two. The impact of a divided opposition has taken a heavy toll on MDC‐aligned representation in government and this has become more marked with each election. The rise in the ZANU PF vote added to the number of seats lost to a divided vote in 2013, rather than a loss in the combined opposition vote. ZANU PF and the Vote 11. The ZANU PF vote has shown much greater variation over the five elections than the MDC vote has. 12. The two largest votes for ZANU PF have been in 2002 and 2013.  In 2002, Robert Mugabe received 1,685,212 presidential votes.  In 2005, ZANU PF received 1,569,867 votes in the Parliamentary vote.                                                              89 Generally in Zimbabwe, voters seem to vote across the board for their one chosen party, rather than voting depending on caliber of candidates at ward, constituency and presidential level, but clearly there is some discrimination taking place. In particular, the desire among opposition voters to get rid of Mugabe has led to voters voting for Tsvangirai as president, while they may support their own small opposition party at other levels of the vote.   34