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Violence in lead up to Zengeza by-election
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-11
Monday March 15th - Sunday March 21st 2004

Despite the signing of an agreement by all parties contesting the Zengeza by-election to encourage their supporters to campaign peacefully, violence continued to flare in the build-up to the election, scheduled for this weekend (March 27th -28th).

Both the private and the government-controlled media reported on this disturbing development that now characterizes elections in this country.

However, they disagreed over which party was behind this renewed fighting. For example, Radio Zimbabwe blamed the MDC in one of its two stories on the outbreak of violence in Zengeza. It quoted ZANU PF candidate Christopher Chigumba as saying clashes between the two main parties occurred when the MDC supporters provoked his party's youths. No attempt was made to seek comment from the MDC. Neither did it seek independent corroboration of Chigumba's claims.

In its other story, the station merely reported that the Electoral Supervisory Commission had recorded only two incidents of violence without giving detail. ZTV ignored these incidents, preferring to broadcast ZANU PF's campaign stories. On the other hand, SW Radio Africa carried about six stories, all of which blamed ZANU PF for triggering the violence.

However, their stories also lacked balance as they largely relied on the MDC as the primary source of information.

Like Radio Zimbabwe, The Herald carried two reports of violence. One of its reports merely highlighted that the Zengeza campaigns were marred by violence without implicating any party. Its other story blamed the MDC.

The Zimbabwe Independent (19/3) was not helpful either in giving an objective picture of who was to blame in its story, ESC fails to stop violence in Zengeza by-election. Although it tried to get comment from the ESC, it merely quoted the MDC candidate, James Makore, accusing ZANU PF of harassing his party's supporters. MMPZ deplores these barbaric acts to deny citizens their democratic right to elect candidates of their choice without coercion.

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