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Election coverage fatigue
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from the Weekly Media Update 2004-4
Monday January 26^th – Sunday February 1^st 2004

The media’s lack of professional resilience when covering elections was illustrated again by the way in which they handled the Gutu North by-election. The media generally gave scant attention to the election and, as a result, omitted pertinent information on the electoral process, which the ruling party has manipulated in the past to tilt the outcome in its favour.

For example, none the Press investigated the state of the voters’ roll, why the opposition had been refused access to the consolidated roll, or challenged the Registrar General’s office why it had set the election dates during the week when previous polls have been held at weekends. There was no information on the campaign manifestos of the contestants nor on the location of polling stations.

The private media focused largely on ZANU PF’s intimidatory campaign methods. For instance, three of the five reports the private papers carried were on ZANU PF violence or the intimidation of chiefs and MDC activists, including its candidate, Crispa Musoni.

The chiefs were reportedly told they would be stripped of their powers if ZANU PF lost the election.

The rest were on the Zimbabwe Civic Education Trust’s campaigns for peaceful elections and ZANU PF’s abuse of national institutions and developmental projects for campaigning.

The Standard (1/2), for example, quoted Vice President Joseph Msika using the commissioning of an irrigation scheme in Zvavahera Village in Gutu North to campaign. Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority boss Sydney Gata was also quoted at the same occasion telling villagers: "Zesa is Zanu PF. If you see any trucks belonging to Zesa, Arda (Agricultural Rural Development Authority) or DDF (District Development Fund) doing work in the roads, you should know it is Zanu PF doing it." He further urged directors of ZESA "to learn Zanu PF slogans".

The Sunday Mail (1/2) reported the event but censored Gata’s remarks. However, it quoted Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge saying, "the country’s sovereignty was sacrosanct and will never be lost through the ballot box". The underlying implications of this statement were not scrutinized.

The report was one of the four stories carried by the government Press one of which related to voter education. The other two denied private media reports of ZANU PF violence against perceived opponents.

The trend was similar on ZBC. The broadcaster carried three ZANU PF campaign stories and four voter education reports. These included Msika in Zvavahera where he invaribaly labelled the MDC as "sellouts, sponsored stooges and anti-revolutionaries".

Like the government Press, ZBC suffocated stories exposing violence against the opposition. ZTV (30/1, 7am) however, confirmed private media reports that ZANU PF was urging chiefs to bar the opposition from holding rallies in their areas. But instead of condeming such undemocratic activities, ZTV’s reporter passively endorsed the practice, saying chiefs did not "want a party which promotes the interests of the British colonisers".

Private radio stations, which exposed this chicanery the previous week, condemned it as a blatant subversion of the electoral process.

Besides exposing ZANU PF’s violent campaign in Gutu North, the private media also publicized other incidents of rights abuses committed by ZANU PF supporters in other parts of the country. For example, SW Radio Africa (26/1 and 27/01) reported that Zanu-PF youths had beaten up MDC supporters in Chimanimani. A follow-up story appeared in The Daily News on Sunday (1/2).

In fact, SW Radio Africa (26/1) cited a report by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum on Zimbabwe’s human rights record, which revealed that over 90 percent of the incidents of political violence reported country-wide were perpetrated by Zanu-PF youths, with the police failing to act.

This seemed to be vindicated by a High Court ruling that awarded MDC activist John Mukondwa $800,000 in damages after he was shot by a policeman in a politically motivated incident before the 2002 presidential election (The Daily News, 28/1). The officer was in the company of ZANU PF youths who beat up and tortured Mukondwa.

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