8.1 ZESN urges that electoral legislation on the Presidential election must be designed to cater for a situation where whilst there is no candidate who wins by more than 50% of the votes in the first election and therefore needing a Presidential Run-Off election, there will be more than two candidates having the highest votes. This may happen where for example two candidates are tied in second place by reason of having an equal number of votes. The current rules on a Presidential Run-Off election are based on the assumption that there will only be two candidates with the highest votes in the first election. Failure to cater for the unlikely scenario raised in this recommendation could produce an unnecessary crisis. 8.2 ZESN recommends a review of the role of Parliament in the election of the President in the event of a deadlock at the Presidential run-off election. Currently, the rule is that where there is a deadlock Parliament will sit as an Electoral College to make the final decision. ZESN believes the Presidency is too important an office for decisions on its holder to be delegated to Parliament. It is recommended that this be changed so that where there is a deadlock, a new election is held until such time that a clear winner is found. This recommendation is consistent with the position in Ghana, which has a similar system providing for run-off elections. Simply put, the decision on the Presidency must remain in the hands of the voters. 9. Convening Parliament pending Presidential Run-Off Election 8.1. ZESN recommends that the legislation should give a specific time-line of when the Parliament should be convened after the election, even in the event of a run-off Presidential election. This will ensure Parliament is able to commence its role and that it is not dependent on the timing of the outcome of the Presidential election. 10. Declaration of Results “Forthwith” 10.1 Although the proposed law sets up a requirement that the results of the Presidential election must be declared within a period of 5 days from the last polling day, ZESN urges that best practice is to follow the mandatory requirement that the results be declared forthwith. The 5 50