civic education that enlighten people without putting pressure on them to advocate or vote for one position or another. • Several incidents of intimidation, arrest and vilification of those advocating a NO vote were reported, and this is contrary to promotion of a free environment in which dissenting opinions are encouraged and welcomed. On the legislative environment persisting during the pre-referendum period • The GPA clearly stipulated that laws impacting negatively on fundamental rights and freedoms of expression, assembly, association and movement were to be amended to ensure a conducive legislative environment. These undertakings were ignored, if not violated, with impunity. • The position taken by COPAC representatives, that they would encourage law enforcement agents to “suspend” the application of the Public Order and Security Act to allow a conducive environment for education and debate on the draft constitution to take place, was startling. This was a clear indication from COPAC that such laws repress freedoms. However suspension is no sufficient and these laws should ultimately be dismantled. The subsequent disruption of civic debates on the draft constitution, and heavy-handed police action to prevent political players including the Prime Minister himself from carrying out such activities was a clear indication that legislative and institutional reform was not a government priority and such repressive laws would only continue to be used selectively by unreformed state institutions and actors to prevent constitutional freedoms from being exercised due to lack of political will and failure to censure heavy-handed action whenever it would occur • The publicly owned but state-controlled media (print and electronic) failed to provide programming and content to enlighten people in a comprehensive and educative manner about the contents of the draft constitution. There was inequality of access to such media by representatives offering dissenting views. Reform of the public broadcaster and state-controlled media remained outstanding despite their urgency and the GPA requirement that this is a priority for the IG. • Other repressive laws continued to be abused and selectively applied against targeted CSOs and human rights defenders (HRDs) during the pre-referendum period. There was an increase in the criminalisation of free speech through the abuse of insult laws, and the reliance on the Broadcasting Services Act to stifle lawfully operational alternative media and voices. In relation to the latter, since the beginning of 2013, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) had arbitrarily sought to “ban” alternative sources of media, namely short-wave radios. This was followed by the confiscation of radios from CSOs and communities that were searched or found to possess such gadgets. The unlawful confiscation of radios witnessed, is directly linked to the closing up of access to diverse information and leads to a situation where people in communities are not able to get any alternative sources of information as they cannot afford to buy newspapers, and in most cases there is no frequency for state controlled broadcasting. This is a blatant violation of the right to freedom of expression and access to information On the role and readiness of the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) • The ZEC was not consulted prior to the referendum date being set. Although they had worked comprehensively to prepare for rolling out the poll, the short notice had an impact on its ability to fully manage the referendum process and ensure adequate resources to carry out its constitutionally mandated duties. • The new referendum regulations were gazetted shortly before the date of the referendum, and included provisions altering some key aspects of the observation process in a manner that impacts good practices. 43