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Statement on the Broadcasting Services (Access to radio and television during an Election) Regulations 2005
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
February 18, 2005

Read the MMPZ's Media and the 2005 parliamentary election - Briefing paper 1

The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ) welcomes the gazetting on 16 February 2005 of regulations governing political parties’ access to the electronic media during the forthcoming parliamentary election as a positive development in election broadcasting in Zimbabwe. The test is whether the regulations, which seek to accord contesting parties and their candidates the right to convey their policies to the electorate through the broadcast media, will be applied fairly.

For the first time, election broadcasts in Zimbabwe are set to depart from the tradition in which Zimbabwe Broadcast Holdings (ZBH) (then ZBC) would set its own in-house regulations and implement them without an independent body monitoring the fair application of the guidelines or arbitrating on complaints from aggrieved parties.

Political parties whose election material is rejected by the public broadcaster must now be given reasons within 24 hours of the rejection and may appeal to the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) for redress.

However, MMPZ notes with concern the fact that the Minister of State for Information and Publicity in the President’s Office, Jonathan Moyo, a functionary of one of the contesting parties (ZANU PF) set the regulations to grant "equal opportunities" to political parties to access the national broadcaster.

In addition there does not appear to have been any consultation with other contesting parties or media organsiations in coming up with the regulations.

While MMPZ in principle welcomes the regulations they have come too late. For example, Section 6 (4) of the regulations requires licensees to "give the Authority [BAZ] a broadcast schedule for election programmes and recording dates for all pre-recorded programmes for its station at least fifteen (15) days before an election period." The BSA defines the election period as the period "thirty-three days before the polling day for the elections and ends at the close of polling day or the last polling day." This means that the election period begins on 26 February 2005. The Broadcasting Services (Access to radio and television during an Election) Regulations 2005 gazetted on 16 February 2005 were gazetted 10 days before the election period which makes it impossible for ZBH to fulfil this requirement of the regulations. It remains unclear how this will affect the broadcasting of election programmes.

The Minister for Information or the BAZ must clarify the consequence of this delay and what remedial action government intends to take.

The prohibitive cost of advertising space has the potential to preclude political parties or candidates with little financial resources. For example, a political party will have to pay $226 million to secure one hour of prime time advertising on ZTV and $84 million to secure one hour of prime time advertising on Radio Zimbabwe.

MMPZ maintains that the public broadcaster, a national resource funded by public funds, should allocate a basic equal amount of free direct access to political parties, which may then be supplemented by paid direct access. Such excessive financial constraints placed upon parties with limited financial resources may effectively subvert the intention of granting equitable access to the electronic media.

Further, the regulations give ZBH the discretion to reject an advertisement that does not "meet the quality standards set by the licensee". This may be manipulated to effectively bar some parties from accessing the public broadcaster. To prevent this, MMPZ calls on ZBH to clarify and widely publicise the "quality standards" according to which it shall measure election broadcasts.

We applaud the regulations for prohibiting ZBH from broadcasting "any election programme that incites or perpetuates hatred against or vilifies any group or person on the basis of their political affiliation." In addition, the regulations oblige ZBH to ensure that all "news and current affairs programmes relating to the election are presented in a balanced, fair, complete and accurate manner." This is no less than what is expected of the national public broadcaster at all times.

MMPZ hopes that ZBH, which in the past hasc violated its own rules on fair coverage of political parties, will this time abide by the regulations and that the BAZ will be fair and firm in monitoring their implementation.

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