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Government media's reluctance to expose the ruling party's undemocratic tendencies
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2005-28
Monday July 25th - Sunday July 31st 2005

THE government media’s reluctance to expose the ruling party’s undemocratic tendencies and intolerance of the opposition was illustrated again this week by their suffocation of the continuing harassment of MDC officials by ZANU PF activists.

For example, ZBH (28/7, 8pm) and The Herald (29/7) censored the alleged assault and harassment of MDC MP for Mbare Gift Chimanikire by ZANU PF youths and officials during the re-opening of Mbare Retail Market, forcing him to leave the event. Instead, the paper only focussed on vice-president Joseph Msika’s speech in which he claimed that "government will not discriminate against members of the opposition" in its operation Garikai.

Only The Daily Mirror (29/7) revealed that Chipangano, a notorious mob aligned to ZANU PF, had assaulted Chimanikire and his aides in the "presence of the police", although the Zimbabwe Independent (29/7) also referred to the incident in their story on the raid on the MDC’s election expert, Topper Whitehead. According to the Mirror, the police detained Chimanikire instead of arresting the assailants when he went to report the assault at Mbare police station.

The papers quoted police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena saying Chimanikire was arrested for possessing "two rifles in his car", a matter the police were "investigating".

Studio 7 reported the story in its evening bulletin on the same day.

In their stories about the raid on Whitehead’s home The Daily Mirror, the Independent and Studio 7 (29/7) all reported that police had confiscated material that could have provided evidence showing how the 2002 presidential election was allegedly rigged. According to these media, the police pounced on Whitehead’s home at "night" claiming that they were looking for "subversive materials" such as photographs and videotapes filmed during Murambatsvina.

Although The Herald (30/7) reported the raid, it carried the story as a news brief buried on page 10. While the private Press viewed the police action as yet another incident of harassment of the opposition and the authorities’ attempts to disrupt the MDC’s efforts to analyse the 2002 election material, The Herald steered clear of such observations and merely quoted Bvudzijena saying the police had raided Whitehead’s home in search of "aggressive documents".

Meanwhile, The Daily Mirror and SW Radio Africa (26/7) revealed that the Supreme Court had dismissed ZANU PF Gokwe South legislator Jaison Machaya’s appeal against a High Court ruling nullifying his victory against MDC candidate Lameck Muyambi in the 2000 parliamentary elections. The paper quoted Muyambi’s lawyer saying the Supreme Court judgment, which was delivered on February 4 this year and "made available" on July 25, had become "academic and overtaken by events since new polls have been held" adding that had it "come out on time…fresh elections would have been called for the constituency".

The government media ignored this latest example of how the administration of justice in the country has been subverted.

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