ZESN Report on the 31 July 2013 Harmonised Elections Appendix 2: ZESN’s Preliminary Statement issued on 1 August 2013 ZIMBABWE ELECTION SUPPORT NEWORK 2013 Harmonised Elections Preliminary Statement 01 August 2013 – Holiday Inn, Harare Summary The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) as part of its comprehensive effort to observe the 2013 Harmonised elections deployed over 7,000 observers to every province and constituency in the country. Generally the environment was relatively calm and peaceful. Based on the empirical reports from our observers, regardless of the outcome, the credibility of the 2013 Harmonised Elections is seriously compromised by a systematic effort to disenfranchise an estimated million voters. Before Election Day the voter registration process was systematically biased against urban voters. The voters’ roll of 19 June as provided by the Office of the Registrar General clearly showed that urban voters had systematically been denied the opportunity to register to vote. A total of 99.97% of rural voters were registered while only 67.94% of urban voters were registered (see table 1). Table 1: Comparison of Registered Voters with Estimated Eligible Voters by Rural/Urban Wards Urban/Rural Voters Roll 19 June 2013 2012 Census Estimate Difference Per cent Registered Rural Wards 4,278,103 72.64% 4,279,336 64.33% 1,223 99.97% Urban Wards 1,612,066 27.36% 2,372,522 35.67% 760,456 67.94% Total 5,890,169 6,651,858 761,689 An estimated 750,000 urban voters could be missing on the voters’ roll compared to rural voters. In contravention of the law, the final voters’ roll was not made available in electronic format prior to Election Day. Thus there is no way to assess any bias on the final voters’ roll. On Election Day urban voters were further systematically disenfranchised. At 82% of urban polling stations many potential voters were turned away and not permitted to vote for reasons which include names not appearing on the voters’ roll and turning up at the wrong ward for voting. This is in sharp contrast to rural areas where only 38% of polling stations turned away many potential voters. This served to disenfranchise thousands more of urban voters on Election Day. 88 | P a g e