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SADC Summit and Electoral Reforms
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-33
Monday August 16th - Sunday August 22th 2004

Poor interpretative skills characterised media reports on the adoption by SADC countries of a standard electoral system meant to facilitate the conduct of free and fair elections in the region during a recent summit in Mauritius.

The media failed to provide in-depth analysis of the technicalities of the electoral guidelines and what they really meant to the prospects of holding proper democratic polls in the region, especially in Zimbabwe where the worsening political and economic crisis has invited fierce international criticism.

Further, they did not fully discuss the rigorous review procedures and time frames, which the region would use to measure and enforce compliance with the regulations among wayward member states. Neither did they explore the wisdom of empowering member countries to invite election observers at their own discretion, one of the points the ruling party seemed to have welcomed heartily.

But while the private media at least gave some useful glimpses on both the merits and drawbacks of the new SADC electoral regulations, the government-controlled media did not. They merely used the regional guidelines to rubberstamp government's proposed controversial electoral law reforms, which they argued measured up to the SADC charter. This is despite the fact that civic society and the opposition MDC have dismissed the reforms as woefully inadequate.

In fact, the government media's fixation with defending government's non-reformist electoral attitude resulted in these media even misrepresenting the new SADC electoral rules. ZTV and Power FM (17/8, 6pm), for example, falsely claimed that the SADC guidelines stipulated that "If the national constitutional body responsible for monitoring the elections pronounces the polls free and fair, then the participating observer nations should accept the result."

However, there appeared to be no such provision in the final SADC draft of electoral standards, which among other issues, advocates political tolerance, freedom of association, full participation of the citizens in the political process and equal opportunity for all political parties to access the state media.

Otherwise the clauses relevant to the issue actually empower the SADC Electoral Observation Missions (SEOM) to announce their own verdict on the conduct of the election soon after the local electoral authorities announce the result. Thereafter, SEOM would then be expected to compile a comprehensive report of its findings within 30 days of the end of the poll.

However, besides misrepresenting the SADC guidelines, the official media also magnified aspects of the guidelines that dove-tailed with the authorities' own political interests. Thus, ZTV (17/8, 6pm), Radio Zimbabwe (17/8, 1pm), Power FM (17/08, 8pm) and The Herald (18/8) merely reported Foreign Affairs Minister Stan Mudenge as rejoicing on the fact that "[SADC] member states will only participate in the elections of another country as observers and not as monitors" and that these member states "have to be invited".

Similarly, ZTV (17/08, 6pm and 8pm) quoted President Mugabe relishing the fact that the SADC guidelines "made it clear that there should be no interference or self imposition by member states on the country that is holding elections and that participation in observing elections should be by invitation only".

This report was repeated more than seven times on ZBC.

Alternative views on the matter were only expressed in the private media, which quoted politicians and commentators duly reminding the government of its other obligations under the same charter. Surprisingly, none of the private media carried these guidelines. These only appeared in The Herald (20/8).

Nonetheless, the most telling reminder was by the new SADC chairman, Mauritius Prime Minister Paul Berenger. He summed up SADC's electoral expectations when he was quoted by SW Radio Africa (17&18/8) and The Zimbabwe Independent (20/8) as having told the SADC Summit that "free and fair elections mean not only an independent electoral commission, but also freedom of assembly, absence of physical harassment by the police or any other entity, freedom of the press, equal access to national radio and TV and external and credible observation of the whole electoral process".

Similar views were expressed by commentators on SW Radio Africa (16, 17 & 18/08), Studio 7 (18/8) and in the Independent. They argued that laws like AIPPA and POSA had to be scrapped before Zimbabwe could aspire to meeting SADC's minimum election standards.

The government media steered clear of these issues.

Rather, they tried to divert public attention from these pertinent issues by depicting the adoption of the electoral rules as a slap in the face to the West and the forging of solidarity between SADC and Zimbabwe.

On the contrary, The Standard (22/8) quoted unnamed sources as saying countries such as Mauritius, Botswana and South Africa had been vocal in exhorting Mugabe to reform and hold elections that would meet the new SADC guidelines.

The Zimbabwe Independent echoed these sentiments. It claimed that the adoption of the guidelines was aimed at reining in President Mugabe. It argued that Mugabe, who had proposed "piecemeal electoral reforms before the summit to ward off . . . pressure for fundamental changes at the summit", was "in a cleft stick" as his government "will now have to adhere to SADC principles and guidelines which threaten his tenure on power".

In fact, the Independent, The Sunday Mirror (22/8) and The Standard cited South African President Thabo Mbeki as having told journalists that countries which don't abide by the new guidelines would be expelled from the regional body under the SADC Treaty.

But the government remained resolute, arguing that the adoption of the SADC charter was done in solidarity with Zimbabwe to spite the intrusive behaviour of the West.

To this end ZTV (16/8, 8pm, 17/8, 6am & 19/8, 8pm), Power FM (16, 17/8, 1pm & 18/8, 1pm), Radio Zimbabwe (17/8, 6am) and The Herald (17/8) heavily exploited the assertions of SADC's outgoing leader, Tanzanian President Benjamin Mkapa who insisted that the electoral guidelines were not targeted at any country. These, he said, were a "culmination of a long process of introspection and self assertion of thinking" among regional leaders on "what is appropriate to our circumstances and what is not."

Mkapa's anti-imperialistic rhetoric in which he attacked former colonisers of wanting to foist prescribed democracy on the region during the summit was particularly used by these media to support the notion that SADC had "humiliated the Western world", (ZTV 18/08, 6pm).

Meanwhile, in a bid to portray government as committed to electoral reforms, ZTV (19/08, 6pm), The Herald (19/8) and Radio Zimbabwe (20/08, 6am) reported Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa as having told Parliament that government planned to implement some of its proposed reforms during the forthcoming Seke by-election.

But Chinamasa exposed government's reluctance to introduce wholesale changes to the electoral process when he reportedly claimed in Parliament that media coverage of political parties was "tilted in favour of the opposition" as the "majority of the publications in the country supported the opposition".

Chinamasa however, did not say whether the publications he alluded to belonged to the state, which under the new SADC guidelines are the only ones required to accord political parties equal access.

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