End of Voting Update

The CIASA observation team as accredited by ZEC was deployed to observe the 26th of March By-elections which closed off at 7 pm having started off at 07.00 am, at all the polling stations that the mission observers had been deployed to. The observation mission was using a hybrid observation methodology which included the use of static and mobile teams who were working on observing if the elections are in accordance to the electoral act, pass the test of integrity and is in line with international best practise

The Major observations were as follows:

• There was generally a lower voter turnout as compared to the previous elections with young people being the demography that participated the least as compared to the 2018 harmonized elections in the concerned polling stations.
• There was also a limited voter education to the voters as they were significant number of voters that turned up for voting from areas that were not concerned in this round of By-Elections.
• The general conduct of politicians was within the required standards as there were no major incidences of violence or disruptions that occurred.
• The conduct of the electoral commission personnel was professional towards the voters and the observers except of the few isolated incidences where presiding officers were less cooperative with observers.
• Logistically there were no major matters arising except the power outages which affected certain polling stations in Masvingo Urban.
• There were also concerns around the accessibility of the polling stations infrastructure to People With Disabilities.
• In areas where CIASA has observed voting closed at 7pm.

CIASA observers remain stationed at their designated polling stations awaiting for the completion of the counting and announcement of results wherein they will demobilize and comprehensive preliminary report will be released in the next 24 hours.

Source: CIASA