Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum General at the time the Citizenship Act was passed) later alleged that the law was unclear but white Zimbabweans’ rights were intact, and that permanent residents also had the right to vote on production of appropriate identification. The ESC wanted the general election, if not also the referendum, postponed until sufficient resources were guaranteed for proper monitoring and supervision. It was allocated only Z$4 million in the 2000 budget, three-quarters of which was earmarked for salaries and administration. Z$34 million was required for the referendum and Z$600 million for voter registration. Both exercises needed at least 8 000 monitors. Using its own resources,liii the ESC planned to deploy 320 monitors. This was unacceptable to the other organisations, and the steering committee was dissolved. After the ‘no’ vote in the Referendum, the executive ignored the Electoral Act in recurrently failing to consult the ESC on various mandatory issues. It passed multiple, last-minute amendmentsliv to the Electoral Act after Parliament had been dissolved, to relocate ESC functions. The ESC did not supervise voter registration, was not consulted by the (constituency) Delimitation Commission, and did not accredit monitors or observers. Delimiting Constituencies The Delimitation Commission was appointed by the President on 28 March 2000 (well beyond the 5-yearly interval set by Article 59(4) of the Constitution). The Commission effectively started work only on 25 April, when it finally received copies of the preliminary voters’ register. It complained of inadequate time, but submitted a preliminary report (without maps) to the President on May 12. On May 15 the President set the dates for the election as 24-25 June. Article 60(8) of the Constitution provides that, for Parliamentary elections, following completion of the report of the Delimitation Commission, the President shall issue a proclamation declaring the names and boundaries of constituencies. The Delimitation Commission submitted its final report with maps to the President only on 24 May – a mere five days before the nomination of candidates was supposed to take place on May 29, according to the Presidential proclamation of the electoral timetable. In accordance with Article 38(2)(a), adequate time (14 days) must be provided before nomination day to all political parties to select their candidates and verify that they meet all of the legal requirements to stand for particular constituencies. The time provided was thus inadequate in terms of Zimbabwe’s own electoral law. The MDC successfully petitioned the High Court to have nomination day moved to a later date. Nomination courts eventually sat on 3 June,10 days after the publication of the constituency delimitation report. This could have discriminated against small opposition parties which are more likely than larger parties to depend on knowing precise boundaries when deciding whether or not to nominate a specific candidate in a particular constituency. Concern was also raised over unequal access to delimitation information which gave the ruling party an unfair advantage over all opposition parties, large and small. Zanu-PF knew the constituency boundaries some time in advance. The then Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs – who was also a member of the Zanu-PF Politburo – received the report for onward transmission to the State President, himself Secretary-General of the ruling party, before it was released publicly. Zanu-PF was able to identify its two candidates in the newly-partitioned constituency of Mt. Darwin well before the official release of the delimitation report. Monitoring Electionslv In February, the Zimbabwe Electoral Supervisory Network (ZESN) was created by 33 civic 24