1. Introduction and background Over the last thirty-five years of Zimbabwe’s existence as an independent country, electoral boundaries have always been a critical factor to the electoral outcome. The predominant electoral system in place in Zimbabwe for some time has been the First Past the Post, is greatly impacted by the demarcation of boundaries and numbers of registered voters. Also, the requirement for voter registration and actual voting to take place within a specified constituency, has led to electoral processes that have been contested. The determination of electoral boundaries is an important factor that has to be managed properly as it can easily be manipulated if one contesting political power has undue influence to the exclusion of others. This can also have unintended consequences whose negative impact can continue to be felt long after the ballots have been counted and stored away. In Zimbabwe this has been particularly true when it comes to forced evictions of people from settlements in the period leading up to polling day. In most such instances boundary delimitation has led to an increase in voting numbers in particular places, as well as dilution of certain votes, swinging the outcome in favour of certain parties. Settlements of displaced persons have commonly arisen near sparsely populated low-density areas that are close to rural constituencies, or where there is open land that can be inhabited. These settlements have been subjected to the emergence of unscrupulous housing cooperatives, land barons and subsequent forced demolitions when the inhabitants cease to be of value to those seeking to manipulate these vulnerable populations for political gain. 2. Historical perspective Since the emergence of a strong political opposition in Zimbabwe, there have been numerous allegations of manipulation of electoral boundaries by the ruling party – Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF). This perception, that the process is flawed and subject to manipulation, has been fueled by the general lack of transparency and lack of independence of the institution involved in spearheading the process given its control by the ruling party. In spite of these shortcomings, the process has never been properly challenged in the courts of law. Following the 2013 elections, the Movement for Democratic Change (Tsvangirai) MDC-T candidate for Mount Pleasant Constituency, Jameson, unsuccessfully attempted to challenge the unconstitutional redrawing of boundaries of his 2|Page