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The MDC elections boycott
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-34
Monday August 23 – Sunday August 29th 2004

THE announcement by the MDC that it would boycott any future elections until government levelled the electoral playing field and complied with SADC’s new electoral guidelines received a vicious response from the government-controlled media. So partisan were the official media that none of the 14 stories carried by the government controlled Press remotely depicted the essence of the matter. Instead, they were propaganda pieces designed to discredit the MDC and misrepresent its position, thus diverting public attention away from the very pertinent flaws in the country’s electoral process that the opposition party was attempting to point out.

The private media on the other hand largely provided their readers with better accounts of the development, although two comments carried in The Daily Mirror (27/8) and The Sunday Mirror (29/8) were exceptions. However, the official media’s biased coverage remained unrivalled, particularly in the way they dismissed the MDC’s concerns over the country’s flawed electoral system without relating them to the situation on the ground. They argued that the opposition’s worries had no basis because government had demonstrated its commitment to reform the country’s electoral laws by announcing its intention to institute "sweeping" electoral reforms and by signing the SADC protocol on elections.

It is in this context that The Herald (26/8) quoted Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and Information Minister Jonathan Moyo attributing the MDC’s electoral pullout to cowardice rather than on the real need for electoral reforms. Chinamasa expressed similar views on ZTV, Power FM and Radio Zimbabwe (26/8, 8pm). He claimed on ZTV: "It’s not true that the playing field is not even… If we take the media for instance, there are about 52 publications in Zimbabwe (and) 50 of them are pro-MDC". This blatant falsehood went unchallenged. Rather, the government media continued to vilify the opposition for its decision at the expense of basic professional journalism. Examples are, MDC are cowards, Chronicle (27/8) and Sellout party’s ‘pullout’ a childish media stunt, The Sunday Mail (29/8).

Only the private media provided less emotional and more coherent reasons for theMDC’s boycott. The Financial Gazette, The Daily Mirror (26/8) and The Zimbabwe Independent (27/8), for example, qualified the MDC’s complaints with relevant examples of electoral irregularities that have discredited the conduct of previous elections.

Political activists and commentators were used to buttress these observations, arguing that a wholesale change of Zimbabwe’s skewed electoral laws were long overdue.

The Financial Gazette quoted MDC spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi explaining that the MDC did not just want electoral reforms, but also required "significant political reforms, in particular the ending of political violence and the repeal of repressive statutes such as POSA and AIPPA that place gratuitous curbs on the independent media and citizens’ democratic rights pertaining to freedom of speech, assembly and association". The paper’s comment even called for the expulsion of states that fail to conform to the SADC principles, which it said could help curb political violence if implemented in Zimbabwe. The Mirror, the Independent and The Standard (29/8) all agreed. The Mirror observed that political reforms initiated by government had "received lukewarm responses in the opposition and civil society sector with many … calling for wide-ranging reforms" including repealing POSA and AIPPA. But the problem, argued The Standard (29/8), was that President Mugabe was not ready to comply with the SADC charter as demonstrated by his government’s gazetting of the NGO Bill, which would further curtail civic rights in the country.

In fact, MDC secretary-general Welshman Ncube contested in the Independent that it was the "height of hypocrisy" for Mugabe to endorse the SADC protocol while "in his backyard, he is simultaneously sanctioning the organic growth of a framework of repression", which has since produced a "violent" youth militia, the closure of three independent papers and stripped citizens of their basic rights. He said this was the reason why the MDC "has now drawn a line in the sand" andresolved not to continue legitimising sham polls in which the very spirit of the exercise had been invalidated through institutionalised violence, electoral fraud, selective application of the law and a public media that has been "wholly appropriated not just by a political party but by an individual within that political party".

The MDC’s representative in Europe, Grace Kwinje concurred. SW Radio Africa (26/8) quoted her saying, "there is no point in us as an opposition political party continuing to have our democratic rights trampled upon continuing to have our offices raided, our supporters beaten up, tortured and raped. I think thatthere has been enough loss of human lives in the past four years and we have to put an end to that." Political commentators, John Makumbe and Lovemore Madhuku echoed similar views.

The government media however continued to ignore the MDC’s demands and insisted on their unfounded claims that the opposition was merely chickening out since poll reforms were already taking place. To reinforce this notion, ZTV (26/8, 8pm) quoted selected members of the public castigating the MDC’s move saying the opposition’s reasons were "just a scapegoat" because the opposition’s defeat in recent by-elections had given the MDC "a rude awakening". It then used the individuals’ comments as representative of Zimbabweans’ views on the issue byclaiming that, "the general public has described the MDC withdrawal from the 2005 general elections as nothing more than a face saving measure as their defeat and demise is imminent".

The Herald and the Chronicle (27/8) adopted a similar stance.

The papers cited "Zimbabweans from different walks of life" and "analysts" as having "scoffed at threats by the British-funded MDC" to boycott next year’s elections, saying the opposition party "was trying to save face" since it had no chance against ZANU PF "whose policies are embraced by the majority".The Sunday Mail (29/8) comment echoed this claim.

However, the paper’s front page story appeared desperate to assure its readers that the MDC would contest the 2005 elections after all, as it was going on with the selection of candidates for the elections. It claimed the opposition party had decided to pull out of polls only to avoid defeat in the Seke by-elections. A faceless member of the MDC’s "Top Six" and several nameless MDC MPs and provincial leaders were quoted to substantiate this report. The paper’s columnist, Lowani Ndlovu, also dismissed the MDC’s boycott call, describing it as "a big Blair blue lie".

The government media’s partisan bashing of the MDC found some support fromThe Daily Mirror (27/8) and The Sunday Mirror (29/8). The Daily Mirror accused the MDC of being masters of ineffective boycotts since 2000 and said Zimbabweans were more concerned with "policies that will put food on their tables and money in their bank accounts". The Sunday Mirror equated MDC to Renamo and Unita and accused it of "double standards" and "hidden agendas …not originating from themselves but elsewhere". This was in spite of its observation in its lead story that the MDC’s action was inevitable since government was not prepared to meet the opposition party’s electoral demands.

In fact, Chinamasa’s statements on ZTV (26/8, 8pm) dampened any hopes thatgovernment would scrap its repressive laws as part of the bargain. He was quoted saying government would not repeal POSA or AIPPA as they were not exclusive to Zimbabwe but modelled along British, Canadian and Australian statutes. No attempt was made to verify these claims. Instead, The Herald (26/8) quoted him further exposing government’s non-reformist attitude by claiming that the SADC guidelines were not law but a "norm-setting document".

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