On December 9, Zimbabwe conducted by-elections in Lupane East, Binga North, Beitbridge West, Bulawayo South, Lobengula-Magwegwe, Mpopoma-Mzilikazi, Nketa and Cowdray Park. National Assembly and Local Authority vacancies arose following recalls of nine (9) incumbent legislators and 17 Councillors by the ‘interim secretary general’ of the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Sengezo Tshabangu who declared that they had ceased to be members of the political party with effect from 3 October 2023. However, instead of nine (9) National Assembly by-elections, only eight (8) were conducted. This followed a High Court judgment which barred recalled legislators from contesting, ruling acceptance of their candidature by the Nomination Court was unlawful. Therefore, the Mabvuku-Tafara by-election was cancelled since only two candidates had been nominated for election in the constituency and Sakupwanya Pedzai of ZANU-PF was duly nominated and elected as the Member of Parliament for Mabvuku-Tafara constituency.
In the run-up to the election, the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) volunteers and members observed the pre-electoral environment and other electoral related events and processes such as the sitting of the Nomination Court that was conducted on 7 November 2023. On election day, ZESN deployed 256 static and 38 mobile observers who observed the election day processes. These observations helped ZESN in determining whether elections complied with national, regional and international standards of electoral integrity.
