ZESN Report on the 31 July 2013 Harmonised Elections Women and Elections56 Zimbabwe held elections in the context of a new Constitution that affirms women’s equal participation in decision-making. Zimbabwe is signatory to the SADC and AU Protocols on women. These give clear guidelines for the equal representation and equal participation of women in elections. Concerns in the pre-election period ZEC had limited outreach and spread itself too thin. Its officers did not stick to the training manual and sometimes even misinformed citizens. A case in point is a session of voter education by ZEC officials in Mutasa where they told communities that women had already been given 60 per cent of the seats in Parliament. Most civil society organizations (CSOs) were not permitted to conduct voter education. The few that were granted permission were informed just two weeks before the elections, which did not give them enough time to be effective. As a result, many voters did not understand the procedures surrounding the electoral process. For example, on Election Day many nursing mothers stood in long queues and did not present themselves to polling officials due to the fact that they did not know they qualified for preferential treatment. In other cases however, nursing mothers and the elderly were denied this benefit. Many women were disenfranchised as a result of the limited duration of the voter registration exercise and a pervasive lack of information about its activities. For example, information about the location of registration centres was not easily accessible. Even though registration was extended by 30 days, several challenges were still apparent. The ward-based mobile registration centres were stationed in respective wards for two to three days instead of the stipulated 30 days. This made it difficult for people to register as their applications were often processed very slowly resulting in long queues. In many cases people were unable to get themselves registered before the mobile registration teams left for a new district. Women in rural and urban areas perform multiple gender roles within their homes and communities and cannot afford the time to stand in queues for many hours waiting to register to vote. Be that as it may, this was the scenario at most voter registration centres in urban areas. The women ZESN spoke to said it took an average of five hours to get themselves registered as a voter and many gave up, or did not even try. 56 ZESN acknowledges the Women’s Coalition of Zimbabwe for this section. 55 | P a g e