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Create Date | September 27, 2019 |
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Zimbabwe elects 210 members of the National Assembly in First-Past-the-Post (FPTP) contests held in single-member constituencies.1 Seats on the local authorities are filled in FPTP ward elections. Per the Constitution, the boundaries of these two sets of electoral districts must be periodically delimited to ensure that constituencies, as well as wards, are relatively equal in population.2 Where the electoral district boundaries are placed impacts the results of an election, perhaps even affecting the partisan composition of the parliament or council. When constituency boundaries are intentionally manipulated to produce a particular political outcome, it is referred to as gerrymandering. It is essential for the credibility of the delimitation process that stakeholders believe that the electoral boundaries have not been gerrymandered. For this reason, it is important that the delimitation process be carried out in a manner that accords with constitutional and statutory requirements and meets international best practice standards for impartiality, transparency, equality of voting strength, and representativeness