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ZANU
PF affairs
Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-48
Monday November 29th – Sunday December 5th
2004
NOTHING clearly
illustrates the extent to which the government media have unashamedly
become willing tools of ZANU PF propaganda more than the manner
in which they handled the just-ended ruling party’s National Congress.
These media
swamped their audiences with uncritical stories and programmes on
the party’s Congress at the expense of other important news stories.
For example,
of the two hours and 37 minutes ZTV allocated to its 8pm bulletins
(excluding arts, business, weather and sport segments) during the
week, nearly half of it (48 percent) was devoted to the Congress.
Similarly, Radio Zimbabwe carried 12 Congress reports or 40 percent
of the total news items that featured in its 8pm bulletins of the
week. In addition, Radio Zimbabwe, Spot FM and ZTV broadcast live
three days of the four-day event and even changed their evening
programming to allow for repeats of proceedings at the Congress.
Further, ZTV’s
current affairs programmes, such as Behind The Camera (1/12,
9.30pm) and Face the Nation (2/12, 9.30pm), were on the Congress.
The trend was
similar in the government Press, which carried 54 reports on the
event.
But this unparalleled
allocation of space to ZANU PF, did not translate into a critical
analysis of the power struggles that preceded the Congress.
Rather, most
of their stories simply glossed over the matter and portrayed the
ruling party as a highly successful democratic and united institution,
which, contrary to its Western detractors, still commanded respect
in Asia, Africa and even in Europe and America.
The endorsement
of Water Resources Minister Joyce Mujuru as the party’s vice-president
and the presence at the Congress of representatives from 21 foreign
political parties and movements, particularly Mozambique’s out-going
President Joaquim Chissano, were used to buttress this argument.
As a result,
the in-house squabbles that resulted in a six-month suspension of
the party’s six provincial chairpersons and a strong rebuke for
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo were not fully explored.
For example,
out of the 54 stories the government Press devoted to the Congress
and related matters, only five tried to unravel the exact causes
of the dispute.
But even then,
the stories largely sought to defend Moyo, the alleged architect
of the purported "Tsholotsho Declaration" whose covert
objective was reportedly aimed at removing the party leadership,
except President Mugabe.
However, the
private media were more exploratory.
They belied
the government media’s portrayal of a united ZANU PF by examining
the fissures created by the ‘Tsholotsho Declaration’, which besides
implicating Moyo and the provincial chairpersons, also sucked in
War Vets leaders Jabulani Sibanda and Joseph Chinotimba, Justice
Minister Patrick Chinamasa, Speaker of Parliament Emmerson Mnangagwa,
and several chiefs, among other senior ZANU PF officials.
Nonetheless,
the private media’s coverage was compromised by their fixation with
discussing the punishment ZANU PF was likely to impose on Moyo almost
to the exclusion of some of those who had supposedly connived with
the minister in the matter. For instance, of the 45 stories the
private media carried on the Congress, 28 were on Moyo. Thus, the
fates or involvement of such people as Mnangagwa, Chinamasa or Chinotimba
were surprisingly not adequately addressed.
Early in the
week, The Daily Mirror (30/11) correctly predicted that ZANU
PF would take action against its "unscrupulous members"
bent on "prising apart" what is left of
the party’s "fragile unity in the face of a stiff challenge
from the opposition MDC".
According to
unnamed insiders quoted by the paper, the first phase of the punishment
would entail barring the accused from attending Congress through
suspension or even expulsion from the party followed by decisive
action chiefly against Moyo, the alleged "architect of
the unsanctioned indaba".
Subsequently,
the paper (1/12), The Financial Gazette (2/12),
Zimbabwe Independent (3/12), The Standard
and Sunday Mirror (5/12), Studio 7 (1-5/12) and SW
Radio Africa (1-3/12) all approvingly reported on Moyo’s pending
disciplinary action, especially after the ZANU PF leadership had
chastised him for his role in the Tsholotsho meeting, including
dropping him from the party’s Central Committee despite the fact
that he had earlier been elected into the committee by Matabeleland
North province.
In contrast,
the government media tried to obfuscate the extent of the divisions
within ZANU PF by either giving them scant attention or downplaying
their importance by deliberately starving these reports of their
proper backgrounds. Their professional deficiencies manifested themselves
in Radio Zimbabwe, Power FM (1/12, 6am) and ZTV (1/12, 8pm) trying
to hide the identity of other Politburo members who were also questioned
by the party’s leadership about their involvement in the Tsholotsho
meeting. The stations merely reported that ZANU PF’s supreme decision-making
body had also called on "two Politburo members…to explain
themselves" without revealing their identity.
Such dishonesty
was also apparent in the official media’s coverage of the election
of the ruling party’s new Central Committee members. Radio Zimbabwe
and ZTV (5/12, 8pm), The Sunday Mail and Sunday News (5/12)
merely announced Moyo’s exclusion from the Central Committee and
conveniently failed to link it to the Tsholotsho adventure, as did
The Standard, The Sunday Mirror and Studio 7 (5/12).
Neither did
the official media put into context what President Mugabe meant
when he warned his supporters against behaving like "political
prostitutes" whose hearts and souls could be bought
by money when he officially closed the Congress.
In fact, such
passive journalism was earlier demonstrated by The Herald
and Chronicle (29/11, 30/11 and 1/12). On the eve of the
suspension of the six ZANU PF provincial chairpersons both The
Herald and Chronicle (30/11) unquestioningly carried
attempts by Transport and Communications Minister Christopher Mushowe
and Tsholotsho’s Ward 15 councillor, Memeza Mtombeni, respectively
to exonerate Moyo of having convened the Tsholotsho "prize-giving"
ceremony by arguing that the meeting was actually a local community
initiative with no "sinister motive".
This contradicted
the confession by Matabeleland South governor, Angeline Masuku,
whom The Daily Mirror (30/11) reported as telling President
Mugabe: "Your excellency, we are fully behind the nomination
of Joyce Mujuru, Joseph Msika and yourself as the party’s presidium.
This is the original list that the province had proposed but was
later changed by the comrades who attended the Tsholotsho meeting.
The people…have confessed that they erred and that money exchanged
hands."
Despite this,
the next issue of the Chronicle (1/12) was extraordinary
for its presentation of three stories covering the whole of its
front page emanating from a document purportedly "leaked"
to the paper that Moyo had used the previous day to defend himself
before the ZANU PF Politburo meeting over the Tsholotsho saga.
Most extraordinary
of all was the fact that none of this defence, which the paper carried
without challenge, appeared in the Zimpapers’ national daily flagship,
The Herald.
So supine was
the Chronicle’s coverage of the document that it did not even ask
why Moyo and his colleagues were so desperate to attend a "prize-giving
day" at a nondescript rural secondary school that they chartered
a plane for the purpose.
The Sunday
Mirror columnists, The Scrutator and Behind the Words,
were the only ones that offered possible answers to the puzzle,
while SW Radio Africa (3/12) and The Saturday Mirror (4/12)
reported that Secretary for Information George Charamba had censured
the paper’s editor, Stephen Ndlovu, over his paper’s unprecedented
attempt to exonerate Moyo from the so-called ‘Tsholotsho Declaration’.
Not surprisingly,
the government media ignored the issue.
Instead, they
continued to drown such matters, with glowing coverage of ZANU PF,
whose policies they claimed were "people-centred" and
had resuscitated the country’s ailing economy.
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fact sheet
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