Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) reported a big drop in aspiring candidates’ participation.

637 candidates are running for the 210 National Assembly seats in this year’s elections a decreased from the 1 648 people who ran in 2018, according to a report from the ZEC.

In addition, there are also fewer political parties participating this election, with only 19 as opposed to the 55 that ran in 2018. Out of the 637 National Assembly candidates, only 10 are independents.

The ZEC report said this year, only 11 percent of women participated, which is a significant decline from the 14 percent who were in Parliament in 2018. Only 70 female candidates out of 637, while in 2018, there were 237 out of 1 648 candidates for National Assembly elections, or 14.4 percent.

Mashonaland Central has a single woman candidate out of the 40 contestants in the province while Bulawayo has the highest number of women contesting at 16 while 41 candidates are men.

Harare comes second with 14 women participating and 96 men who are contesting. Mashonaland West has eight women and 55 men while Masvingo has four female contestants and 59 men.

Matabeleland South has two female contestants and 34 men, Manicaland – has four women and 67 men, Mashonaland East has six female contestants and 54 men. Matabeleland North has eight women and 51 men while Midlands has seven female candidates and 71 male contestants.

Out of the 11 presidential candidates running this year, there is no female contestant while in 2018 there were four women out of the 23.

There are also fewer candidates for local authority or council positions this year at 4 800 than there were in 2018, when there were 6 796 candidates.

The ZEC report also showed that Zanu PF has won 92 council seats uncontested, as no other political party fielded candidates in these seats.

This is an increase from 51 council seats Zanu PF won in 2018 for the ward elections. (Source CITE)

Political commentator Sipho Dube said, this is a sign that Zimbabwe might be returning to a two political party state.

“We might be returning to a period where we only had ZanuPF and MDC which was in the early 2000 judging from the candidate list of nominees however we might be surprised by the unexpected,” said Dube.