1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 Mbalekwa Ndlovu Charamba Mzila Figure2: The graph only shows votes for the top four of 21 people who contested the ZANU PF primary elections the contenders. National Constitutional Assembly, Free Zimbabwe Congress, and Progressive Democrats of Zimbabwe (PDZ) did not hold any primary elections, instead their respective party candidates were unilaterally nominated by the leadership of their political parties. Supporters of these parties were not afforded an opportunity to contribute towards the candidate selection process. From the forgoing it is apparent that internal party democracy is work in progress for the political parties that are contesting this by-election. 5. MEDIA AND ELECTIONS Media freedom is fundamental in promoting political, civil and political rights and liberties enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe. The media plays a critical role in electoral processes, providing information to voters and a platform to political parties and candidates while serving a watchdog function. As witnessed in previous by-elections, there was a marked difference in the coverage of the by-election by the public and private media. There was very little mention of other political parties and candidates in the public media, with news stories mainly covering rallies and campaign activities that were organised by ZANU16 | P a g e