mission for the elections. Mdladlana said the elections on Thursday "by and large" conformed to election guidelines adopted by southern African leaders last year for holding a democratic vote. "Let me congratulate the people of Zimbabwe for holding a peaceful, credible and well-organised election which we feel reflects the will of the people" said Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, the South African cabinet minister that led the 55-member, 11-country observer mission from the Southern African Development Community. Mlambo Ngcuka said the observer mission had asked the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to provide evidence to support their claims of discrepancies in 32 of the 120 constituencies. "We have received complaints and asked for information. We still don't have it. There is not much more we can do." she said. Results The results showed the same pattern as in 2000. The MDC won virtually all the seats in the main cities, Harare and Bulawayo, where civil society organisations are relatively strong and able to prevent electoral manipulation. The MDC also won a majority of seats in the southern region of Matabeleland, where the Ndebele people, once supporters of Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU, continue to oppose the Shona-dominated ZANU-PF. But in rural Mashonaland, in central and northern Zimbabwe, where the majority of the population lives, ZANU-PF won all but one seat. In some notable local results, Emmerson Mnangagwa, speaker of the previous parliament, and tipped at one time to succeed Mugabe but recently fallen from grace, lost his seat Kwe-kwe to the MDC's Blessing Chebundo. Jonathan Moyo, an independent, won the Tsholotsho constituency from the MDC. Another significant loss for the MDC was Chimanimani, contested by Roy Bennett's wife Heather. The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, which had some 6,000 observers in the 8,000 polling stations, says that some 10% of would-be voters were turned away, either because their names were not on the electoral roll, they did not have the right identity papers, or they were in the wrong constituency. References Voter's Roll Audit – kubatana.net Parliamentary Election 31 March 2005: Nomination Court Results Zimbabwe Independent, "Zim not ready for free, fair poll", 4 February 2005. Zimbabwe Independent, "Dongo is back", 4 February 2005. Institute of War and Peace Reporting External links Official election results from the Zimbabwe Ministry of Foreign Affairs Angus Reid Consultants – Election Tracker List of candidates Official website of ZANU-PF Official website of the MDC SADC observer mission statement Elections