Zimbabwe: 2008 Post-election - parallel vote tabulations

Updated 16 April 2008

The posting of the results publicly enabled those outside ZEC, such as the two main parties (Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)) to conduct parallel vote tabulations (PVTs) independently of the official tabulations.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN 2008), a coalition of 38 civil society organizations, used a random representative sample ("Sample Based Observation" ) to make a forecast of the outcome of the presidential election, which it published on 31 March 2008. This indicated that the leading presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC, won 49.4% of the vote to for Robert Mugabe of ZANU-PF. In this scenario Tsvangirai would fail to obtain an absolute majority of the votes cast and that a run-off between him and Mugabe would have to be held within 21 days of the previous election, as required by the Electoral Act, section110(3) (the Second Schedule to the Act (3(1)(a)) makes a contradictory provision for election by plurality, but prior to the election the ZEC made it clear that it would follow the main provisions of the Act and conduct a rerun should the need arise). The results for Tsvangirai, however, had a confidence interval of 47.0% to 51.8%, so an absolute majority could not be ruled out (see 2008 Presidential election projected results by ZESN, for the full report see reference ZESN 2008 below).

According to media reports, by April 2 ZANU-PF had completed its presidential projections and predicted that its candidate, Robert Mugabe, would win 43% of the vote and Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC would win 48.3% (Nyamhangambiri & Mafaro, 2008). Similar to the ZESN projection, this outcome would require a presidential run-off.

MDC projections released on the same day as ZANU-PF put the outcome at 50.2% of votes for Tsvangirai had against 43,8% for Mugabe. If the absolute majority ascribed to Tsvangirai by the MDC materialized, no run-off would be necessary. Based on these figures the MDC claimed an outright victory and demanded the release of the presidential results and a hand over of power to Tsvangirai.

The Independent Results Centre (IRC 2008) attempted a much more ambitious exercise. It attempted (apparently with much success) to gather the results posted from all the polling stations for the presidential, House of Assembly and Senate elections and do complete PVTs for each. For the House of Assembly election, it effectively differs from the official results by one seat (cf 2008 House of Assembly election results; note that its tally excludes the seat won unopposed by ZANU PF). For the Presidential election it forecast an absolute majority win for Tsvangirai, with 50.3% of the vote, which would mean that no rerun would be necessary. However, its percentages exclude the results on one constituency and the percentage vote won by independent candidate Langton Towungana.

While these projections all lie comfortably within ZESN's original confidence interval of 47.0% to 51.8%, the difference between them lies between an outright victory for Tsvangirai or a run-off between him and President Mugabe, which by law should take place by the 19 April 2008 (within 21 days after the election).

References

ELECTORAL ACT (CHAPTER 2:13), incorporates all amendments until 17 March 2008, [www] http://aceproject.org/ero-en/regions/africa/ZW/zimbawe-electoral-act-2008 [PDF document, opens new window] (accessed 5 Mar 2010).

IRC 2008, [www] http://www.zimelectionresults.com/ [opens new window] (accessed 5 Mar 2010).

NYAMHANGAMBIRI, S &$38; MAFARO, W 2008 "Tsvangirai says he beat Mugabe", ZimOnline 2 April, [www] http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=2974 [opens new window] (accessed 5 Mar 2010).

ZESN 2008, "ZESN Poll Projections On March 29 Presidential Elections", [www] http://www.zesn.org.zw/newsflash_view.cfm?nfid=29 [opens new window] (accessed 5 Mar 2010).