JUSTICE IN ZIMBABWE 104 ____________________________________________________________________ “If in Britain there has been a race riot towards an election in one or more of the constituencies ... it cannot and has never been suggested that such riots could form a basis for voiding the election in the affected areas even though the race issue may have constituted a key platform for the contesting parties.” Because in his view the violence and intimidation arose from the land issue rather than the election itself, the judge held that the petitioner had not shown there was any general intimidation which permeated the whole constituency; all the petitioner had managed to show were “isolated cases of real or imagined intimidation of his supporters and unfortunate or even tragic incidents involving some of his supporters, but linked more to land occupations than to the election itself.” On that ground he dismissed the petition. With respect, the judge erred. The issue, as he pointed out, was whether there was common-law intimidation, described by Bramwell B in the North Durham Election Petition (1874) 31 LT 383, as: “intimidation ... of such a character, so general and extensive in its operation, that it cannot be said that the polling was a fair representation of the opinion of the constituency.” Whether the intimidation was specifically and explicitly directed towards getting voters to vote in a particular way or to refrain from voting, is beside the point: if the intimidation had that effect, it would be enough to avoid the election.160 Having found that the intimidation was directed towards opponents of land reform, the judge disregarded passages in the evidence which showed that ZANU (PF) supporters or land activists regarded MDC supporters as opponents of that reform. That linkage between opponents of land reform and the MDC may well have made people afraid to vote for the MDC lest they be subjected to violence as opponents of land reform. If so, then the intimidation would have been enough to avoid the election. It may be noted that the judge’s distinction between the land issue on the one side and the election on the other was devised by him mero motu; it was not part of the respondent’s case that the violence arose from the land issue rather than the election. The judge’s veritable obsession with the land issue, which is discernible in at least one other judgment delivered by him161, appears from his opening description of the Mberengwa West constituency, which he says is divided starkly between “rich ...