The widespread absence of constitutional education was evident across rural-urban and provincial boundaries. Due to the small overall number of survey respondents that had participated in civil society exchanges on constitutional matters, the numbers on these items cannot be interpreted as quantitative trends. The COPAC meetings appear to have happened largely as scheduled [Q24C], across the provinces. Voices in the COPAC meetings Reports in the run-up to and course of the COPAC outreach meetings suggested that the COPAC meetings might have been compromised due to party political control over proceedings, amongst others through the appointment of spokespersons to speak on behalf of communities, and influence of deliberations through politically loaded speeches and prayers. The survey outcome suggests that appointments and political speeches and prayers indeed took place, but that it had not been experienced as intimidatory, and that it had not created much fear and apprehension. Only 9% (27 out of 288)11 of those who had attended reported that someone had been appointed to speak on their behalf [Q22D]. Of these 27 cases (too small for statistical analysis) 11 were reported to have been appointed by persons or persons-in-positions that are directly associated with ZANU-PF [Q22D]. The 11 cases comprised, in the words of the respondents, ZANU-PF, a ZANU-PF cadre, ZANU-PF youth, ZANU-PF leadership, a ZANU-PF official, war veterans, and local ZANU-PF leaders. In addition, three of the spokespersons were reported to have been appointed by the traditional leader or headman. The only other notable appointments were those three that were done by community members. Whilst the number of 27 is too small to analyse deeper, it is important that no commensurate appointments by the MDC were reported – ZANU-PF was the only political party that featured in the constitutional spokesperson appointment stakes in this survey. 70% (201) of those who had attended a COPAC outreach meetings reported that the meetings had started with speeches [Q22E], and 49% (143) that prayers had been done that suggested things to be said in the meeting [Q22F]. It was further related by 73% (211 out of the 288 participants) of the COPAC meeting participants that the people who had spoken at the COPAC meetings were community members [Q22G]. Amongst these community-member speakers, it was once again ZANU-PF that was prominent. 152 respondents stated that those who spoke in the COPAC meeting were ordinary community members, rather than people belonging to a particular political party or other type of organisation [Q22H]. However, ZANU-PF followed in second place – 47 respondents noted 11 The number of 288 is taken as a constant for the number of COPAC meeting participants in the rest of this section. 41