Human Rights Archive Zimbabwe

This report outlines the purpose of elections, characteristics of Parliament, electoral system,transitory provisions, general political considerations and conduct of elections. It also showed the distribution of members of the house of assembly according to their professional category, distribution of seats in the senate, distribution of House of Assembly members according to sex and according to age group.

Non-partisan citizen election observers and monitors can be considered as specialized human rights defenders focused on civil and political rights, which are central to achieving genuine elections.

The paper suggests ways of increasing women's participation in local government, parliament and senate.

The report has information about election campaigns by various parties as well as the election results. It also consists of the incidents of the day after the elections.

New Amendments to the electoral Act falls short of expectations.

Police raids Civic Society organisations in Zimbabwe. They started with Zimbabwe Peace Project then they went on to raid the ZESN head office in Harare.

The Bulletin Stated that contesting for Elections is expensive in Zimbabwe making it essential that Political parties have funding for them to take part in the polls.

Progress and Gaps as Zimbabwe headed for elections in 2012.

ZESN analysis of the 2013 Elections

Regulations made by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission updated to incorporate all amendments until 8 June 2018.

The Pros and Cons of Devolution:Can it Work in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe not ready for Elections says UN

In Zimbabwe it has been noted that threats and intimidation have been and are still to bring about certain electoral outcomes.

This issue seeks to continue with the debate and discussions on some interpretations, implications, and prospects towards the 2008 elections in particular on the Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 18. The issue looks at various aspects like the voter registration, which make up the fundamental aspects of a free and fair election.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) continues to observe the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) exercise. This update is based on observations by ZESN observers deployed to cover all the wards under Phase One.

The March 2002 presidential election was preceded by months of intensive violence and intimidation against MDC supporters, and more than 50 people, mostly opposition supporters, were killed. President Mugabe was declared the winner over challenger Morgan Tsvangirai by a 56% to 42% margin. Most international observers condemned the election as seriously flawed--the pre-election environment was neither free nor fair, and the election itself was marred by significant fraud and rigging--but regional opinions were mixed.

On 31 July 2013 Zimbabwe held harmonised elections for the Presidency, the National Assembly, the Senate and local authorities. ZESN deployed 7 099 observers to every province and constituency in the country on 31 July 2013, set at the ‘Election Day’. Reports from observers during the election and throughout the entire process, demonstrated that the credibility of the 2013 harmonised elections was compromised by a systematic effort to disenfranchise many voters.

Electoral system reform and implications for Gender equality

The month under review saw elections remain high on the political agenda as evidence by various media reports on Zimbabwe’s readiness for elections and the subsequent instruction by President Mugabe to “budget for elections in 2011”. This update is informed by observations from the chosen constituencies and broadly captures national political developments in September 2010.

The publication states that the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections and Election Observation Missions (2004) are designed to set out minimum standards that Member Countries should ideally adhere to in the conduct of elections and election observation. The fundamental weakness of the Guidelines is that they do not have full legal force and are not mandatory.

Brief by the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to Local and Foreign observers for the 2018 Harmonised Elections at Harare International Conference Centre (HICC) 13 July 2018.

The 2005 Parliamentary elections represented an important improvement on the 2000 and 2002 elections in that the elections were performed in a peaceful environment without state-controlled violence. Despite this notable improvement from previous elections, the Parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet some key internationally recognised election standards.

In this report for 2008,there are certain trends and characteristics which have been attendant on the incidents reported to the Human rights Forum which rebut the denial of ZANU PF that in most instances the violence that was reported was between over zealous youths and villagers.