Preface 1 Background The 31 July 2013 elections in Zimbabwe were the first elections held after the new constitution was adopted in March 2013. There were some positive developments compared to previous elections held in the 2000s, such as more freedom to campaign and less election related violence. However, the elections were marked by a high degree of controversy and criticism. Elections have been controversial in Zimbabwe since a significant opposition to the ruling party ZANU PF emerged in 2000. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) gained strength after having run a successful campaign together with the National Constitutional Assembly against a draft constitution in a referendum in 2000. The following elections in 2000 and 2002 were marred by violence and manipulation, and the violence continued till 2004. The 2005 elections were less violent but there were still reports of intimidation, biased media and an unlevelled playing field. In 2008 the elections were rather peaceful until the results of the first round of elections showed that the MDC presidential candidate had received the largest share of the votes. Before the presidential runoff, a massive campaign of violence against the opposition was launched and the MDC candidate withdrew.3 NORDEM has sent election observers and experts to Zimbabwe since the year 2000 and has published reports on the 2002, 2005 and 2008 elections as well as on the constitutional history of Zimbabwe from 1980 to 2013.1 Norway was not invited to observe the elections in Zimbabwe in 20132 but three diplomats at the Norwegian Embassy in Harare were accredited as observers for the 31 July elections under an arrangement that allowed resident accredited diplomats to obtain observer status. The independent election expert Kåre Vollan was engaged through NORDEM as an election analyst attached to the Embassy in Harare from June to August 2013. This report provides a thorough analysis primarily of the technical aspects of the elections, complementing the observer reports that have been published by other organisations. We hope the report will prove useful to national and international actors working on election related issues in Zimbabwe specifically, but also on related topics in other countries. NORDEM and the author would like to express our gratitude to the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Norwegian Embassy in Harare for the generous support that made the writing and publishing of this report possible. Marianne Kvan NORDEM Director After mediation and pressure from the Southern African Development Community (SADC), ZANU PF, MDC-T and MDC (in this report referred to as MDC-N after its current leader Welshman Ncube) entered a global political agreement (GPA) which changed the constitution by introducing a prime minister position and some other political reforms. It also regulated how powers should be shared in the interim period and laid out a plan for the drafting and passing of a new constitution. SADC and the African Union (AU) were guarantors for the agreement and South Africa was appointed facilitator for the process. The Government of National Unity (GNU) was established in March 2009 with Robert Mugabe of ZANU PF as president as before, and Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC-T filling the new role of prime minister as explicitly stated in the GPA. In addition there was one deputy prime minister from MDC-N and one from MDC-T. The process of drafting and passing a new constitution was originally estimated to take twenty months from the inception of the GNU, but was only completed after four years and two months. The parties agreed on a draft, recommended it before a referendum, and the new constitution was passed in both chambers of the parliament without opposition. A detailed description of the process and the content of the constitution are found in the NORDEM Special Report 2013 by Kåre Vollan.4 The 31 July 2013 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe included presidential elections and elections for both houses of parliament (the National Assembly and the Senate), provincial councils, and local councils. This is the second time all elections were held on the same day, the 2008 elections being the first. The practice has now been written into the 2013 constitution. The partially directly elected province councils were first introduced by the new Constitution and the electoral system was changed by the introduction of elements of proportional representation. 1 See: http://www.jus.uio.no/smr/english/about/programmes/nordem/publications/nordem-report/ 2 Norway was invited in 2002, but never after that. 4 3 S  ee Vollan, K. (2008) Zimbabwe: The Elections on 29 March and the Later Runoff Event and By-Elections on 27 June 2008, Oslo: NORDEM, University of Oslo. 4 V  ollan, K (2013) The Constitutional History and the 2013 Referendum of Zimbabwe, Oslo: NORDEM, University of Oslo. 5