The Senate of Zimbabwe is the upper of the two chambers in

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...

. It existed from

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

in 1980 until 1989, and was re-introduced in November 2005. The other chamber of Parliament is the

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repre ...

. In its current form, the Senate has 80 members. Of these, 60 members are elected from 10 six-member constituencies (based on the

provinces A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions outsi ...

) by

proportional representation Proportional representation (PR) refers to a type of electoral system under which subgroups of an electorate are reflected proportionately in the elected body. The concept applies mainly to geographical (e.g. states, regions) and political divis ...

using

party list An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...

s; the lists must have a woman at the top and alternate between men and women. The other 20 seats include two reserved for people with disabilities and 18 for traditional chiefs.

History before abolition

The original Senate consisted of 40 members, the majority of whom were elected by the House of Assembly (the directly elected

lower chamber A lower house is one of two chambers of a bicameral legislature, the other chamber being the upper house. Despite its official position "below" the upper house, in many legislatures worldwide, the lower house has come to wield more power or othe ...

), with the remainder being chosen by the Council of Chiefs and appointed by the

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

. Under the

Lancaster House Agreement The Lancaster House Agreement, signed on 21 December 1979, declared a ceasefire, ending the Rhodesian Bush War; and directly led to Rhodesia achieving internationally recognised independence as Zimbabwe. It required the full resumption of d ...

, 20% of seats in both chambers were reserved for

whites White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view. Description of populations as " ...

, until 1987. It was abolished in 1989 with Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No. 31, with membership of the House of Assembly being expanded to include those nominated by the President.

History after reestablishment

The re-established Senate, formed following the elections held on 26 November 2005, had a total of 66 members. 50 members (5 from each

province A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman ''Roman province, provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire ...

) were directly elected in single-member

constituencies An electoral district, also known as an election district, legislative district, voting district, constituency, riding, ward, division, or (election) precinct is a subdivision of a larger state (a country, administrative region, or other polity ...

using the

First-past-the-post In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

system. The

appointed 6 additional members and the remaining 10 seats were held by traditional chiefs who were chosen in separate elections. Twenty-one women (20 elected and 1 appointed) occupy seats in the Senate. The Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment No 18 of 2007 provided for the expansion of the Senate to 93 seats: six Senators from each province directly elected by voters registered in the 60 Senate constituencies; the 10 Provincial Governors appointed by the President; the president and deputy president of Council of Chiefs; 16 chiefs, being two chiefs from each province other than metropolitan provinces, and five Senators appointed by the President. The current Senate resulted from the 2013 constitution. The current Senate consists of 80 members, of whom 60 are elected for five-year terms in 6-member constituencies representing one of the 10 provinces, elected based on the votes in the lower house election, using

party-list proportional representation Party-list proportional representation (list-PR) is a subset of proportional representation electoral systems in which multiple candidates are elected (e.g., elections to parliament) through their position on an electoral list. They can also be us ...

, distributed using the

hare quota The Hare quota (also known as the simple quota) is a formula used under some forms of proportional representation. In these voting systems the quota is the number of votes that guarantees a candidate, or a party in some cases, captures a seat. Th ...

. Additionally the Senate consists of 2 seats for each non-metropolitan district of Zimbabwe elected by each provincial assembly of chiefs using

SNTV SNTV may refer to: *Single non-transferable vote, an electoral system in multi-member constituency elections *Sistema Nacional de Televisión (Nicaragua), the Nicaraguan state broadcaster from 1990–1997 *Sistema Nacional de Televisión (Paraguay) ...

, 1 seat each for the president and deputy president of the National Council of Chiefs and 1 male and 1 female seat for people with disabilities elected on separate ballots using

FPTP In a first-past-the-post electoral system (FPTP or FPP), formally called single-member plurality voting (SMP) when used in single-member districts or informally choose-one voting in contrast to ranked voting, or score voting, voters cast their ...

by an electoral college designated by the National Disability Board.

References

{{Authority control Government of Zimbabwe

History before abolition

History after reestablishment

See also

References