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Political
developments
Media
Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2004-49
Monday December 6th – Sunday December 12th
2004
THE official
media’s reluctance to expose the lack of democracy in ZANU PF was
illustrated by the way in which they downplayed the internal cloak-and-dagger
machinations that preceded the endorsement of Water Resources Minister
Joyce Mujuru as Zimbabwe’s second Vice-President.
So determined
were these media in shielding ZANU PF from the embarrassing episode
and the way the leadership bulldozed Mujuru’s candidature that they
smothered the issue with claims that the development actually confirmed
the party’s democratic and gender sensitive disposition.
In fact, these
media carried about 50 uncritical reports on Mujuru’s appointment
and the purported successes of the just ended ZANU PF congress.
Neither did the reports expose the fractious differences that characterised
Mujuru’s nomination nor related it to the race for President Mugabe’s
post.
And despite
the fact that the divisions over Mujuru had even resulted in the
suspension of six ZANU PF provincial chairpersons and War Veterans’
leader Jabulani Sibanda, ZTV (7/12, 8pm) continued misleading its
audience into believing that Mujuru’s appointment was by consensus
and therefore "an icing on the democratic dispensation of the
country".
In fact, the
nearest the official media came to reporting differences over Mujuru’s
nomination was when ZTV (8/12, 8pm) cited President Mugabe as confirming
that there certainly had been "instances of plots by some ambitious
people bent on changing the course of events" ahead of his
party’s congress. However, the station shortchanged its audience
by failing to reveal the exact nature of the plots, the identity
of the conspirators or the collective punitive measures that awaited
them.
But it was not
only in this instance that audiences of these media might have felt
cheated.
Notable too,
was the partisan nature in which the government media sourced their
stories. Except on one occasion, all voices sourced by these media
on the subject belonged to either ZANU PF or those sympathetic to
the party. These included voices from the ZANU PF Women’s League,
War Collaborators’ Association, December 12 Movement and ZANU PF
apologists such as Augustine Timbe and William Nhara.
The supine tone
of these sources was clearly captured by The Herald (7/12) which
quoted December 12 Movement’s Viola Plummer welcoming Mujuru’s appointment,
saying "women understood that it was always unity that made
a nation strong and the appointment of Cde Mujuru was an enlightening
experience on the entire African continent".
Similarly, ZTV
(6/12, 8pm) recorded Plummer and fellow December 12 comrade, Coltrane
Chimurenga, as saying Mujuru’s appointment symbolized the ruling
party’s desire in "upholding democracy and mass participation
in issues of national governance".
It was therefore
not surprising that the official media’s sanitised reports ignored
developments recorded in the private media revealing the extent
of discontent among some senior party officials by the whole vice-presidency
issue.
Although The
Daily Mirror and its sister paper, The Sunday Mirror, also welcomed
Mujuru’s promotion, they, like the rest of the private media, discussed
the controversial circumstances surrounding her appointment and
noted that President Mugabe had to wield his authority to ensure
that she was elevated.
This was in
fact the thrust of 18 of the 35 reports the private media carried
on the issue.
These media
also generally agreed in 12 stories that the exclusion of Information
Minister Jonathan Moyo from the party’s Central Committee signalled
his demise in ZANU PF, as he was likely to be dropped from both
the Cabinet and the Politburo.
Almost half
of these stories appeared in The Daily Mirror, which spearheaded
the private media’s passion for getting to the bottom of the Tsholotsho
adventure and its possible ramifications for Moyo’s political future
in particular.
But while the
private media tried to unravel the dissent within the ruling party,
the government media, as illustrated by The Manica Post (10/12),
continued to gloss over this problem by echoing the President’s
claims that the party had actually emerged "stronger"
and "rejuvenated" from the congress. This was because
the event, said the paper, had "presented a platform for the
party to restructure and consolidate its growing support base…evidenced
by its reclamation of a number of seats it had lost to the opposition
MDC in 2000".
Similar views
were expressed in The Herald and Chronicle (6/12).
However, The
Standard and The Sunday Mirror (12/12) portrayed a ZANU PF riddled
with strife. For example, The Standard reported some ruling party
officials as unhappy with President Mugabe’s "dictatorial"
suspension of the six provincial chairpersons.
It quoted suspended
war vets’ leader Sibanda saying the suspension of the officials
was a "threat" to democracy, adding that Zimbabweans "should
fight for democracy no matter where the threat to democracy was
coming from".
The Sunday
Mirror also revealed that some of the disgruntled senior ZANU
PF officials were being courted by the MDC to join its ranks, a
development confirmed by the opposition.
Unlike The Herald
and Chronicle (6/12), it was only the private media that explored
the connotation behind President Mugabe’s hint that Mujuru "might
be destined for higher office" when he reportedly called on
her to aim higher.
The Financial
Gazette (9/12), for example, viewed the statement as a suggestion
that Mugabe preferred Mujuru as his successor, arguing that if indeed
this was his wish, it was "inconceivable that…ZANU PF will
go against his express wish" considering that he had "virtually
won the vote for Mujuru" at the party’s congress.
To substantiate
this, the paper quoted analysts as having noted that the way he
held sway in the nomination of Mujuru by purging those party members
who were against her endorsement showed that "he was the last
word in ZANU PF".
Studio 7 (6/12),
SW Radio Africa (7/12), The Daily Mirror (7/12) and Zimbabwe Independent
(10/12) all agreed.
For example,
the Independent observed that the way President Mugabe reversed
some of the nominations for his party’s Central Committee showed
that "he rules as he pleases although he wants to give the
impression of collective responsibility". Additionally, the
paper cited other examples in which President Mugabe had unilaterally
overruled decisions made by his subordinates in the past.
On the other
hand, The Daily Mirror seemed to justify Mugabe’s interference
on the grounds that it was important for the leadership "to
direct the will of the people" because without its intervention
"power struggles can become dirty to the extent of threatening
the stability and unity of revolutionary movements".
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