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Elections
Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Weekly Media Update 2006-43
Monday October 23^rd 2006 – Sunday October 29^th 2006

THE media inadequately handled last weekend’s local government elections, most of which were won by ZANU PF. Generally, they provided little information on the mechanics governing the polls. As a result, the electorate largely remained in the dark on the state of the voters’ rolls, ward demarcations, the location of polling stations and the composition and credentials of accredited observers.

In fact, voters only learnt of the location of voting booths on the day of the election through an advertisement placed in The Herald (28/10). But how the electoral authorities expected voters – especially those in the rural areas where most of the elections were held – to access at short notice such vital information from the paper, which largely circulates in urban centres remained unquestioned.

Instead, the official media carried 26 stories (ZBH [23] and government Press [3]) that passively quoted the electoral authorities expressing their readiness for the polls. For example, ZTV and Spot FM (25/10, 8pm) passively reported the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission saying it had established 3 000 polling stations without investigating whether they were adequate.

Similarly, The Herald (26/10) simply announced that accreditation of observers was underway without informing its readers about how many were eventually accredited.

Rather, the government media seemed more interested in promoting ZANU PF. For example – in clear violation of its public service mandate – all 17 campaign stories that ZBH aired were on the ruling party. None was on the opposition. The MDC was mainly mentioned in the context of ZANU PF’s vilification of the party. Likewise, of the nine campaign stories the official papers carried, seven were exclusively on the ruling party while only two reported all the contesting parties commenting on their preparations.

Even then, the stories contained editorial intrusions that maligned the opposition as a British puppet bereft of meaningful policies.

For instance, after reporting on the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC’s preparations, the Chronicle (26/10) then vilified the party as a "British backed opposition party" that was "obsessed with opposing everything that ZANU-PF says or does no matter how good without offering any alternatives." On the contrary, all stories on ZANU PF that the official media carried were glowing projections of the party.

It was in this context that they avoided the in-house squabbles in the ruling party, which resulted in it registering two sets of candidates for each of the five wards in Kadoma.

ZBH (24&27/10, 8pm), The Herald and The Chronicle (25/10) merely reported ZANU PF officials threatening to expel candidates who had defied the party by contesting the elections without investigating the cause for such dissent.

The government media’s unbalanced coverage was illustrated by their sourcing patterns as shown in Figs 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution on ZBH

Although the government papers’ voice distribution appeared balanced, they mainly quoted MDC voices in the context of dismissing their views and concerns.

Fig. 2 Voice Distribution in the official papers

Except for the two stories that Studio 7 carried quoting the Zimbabwe Election Support Network bemoaning inadequate voter registration and education, the private media were no better. They barely assessed the country’s electoral framework.

Instead, they gave more space to campaigns and politically motivated violence.

But unlike the government media, the private papers strove for balance by giving publicity to ZANU PF campaigns in three cases, Tsvangirai faction (two) and the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC (once). Similarly, Studio 7 gave space to all contesting parties: ZANU PF (twice), Tsvangirai group (twice) and the Mutambara camp (once).

However, other private media did not display such fairness.

The three campaign reports carried by SW Radio Africa and the online news agency, Zimdaily only focused on the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction, while New Zimbabwe.com’s single story was on ZANU PF factionalism in Kadoma.

Such imbalance was more apparent in the 15 reports the private media carried (private electronic media [8] and private Press [7]) on incidents of electoral violence and rights abuses by the ruling party against its opponents.

Almost all the reports relied on the MDC allegations and lacked independent verification.

The government media completely ignored such reports but simply magnified the authorities statements that the campaign period was peaceful.

It is against this background that ZBH (25/10, 8pm) and The Herald (26/20) failed to give full details on the six cases of "petty" political violence the police said they recorded in Rushinga, Glendale and Gokwe.

Instead, ZBH drowned the matter with police assurances that they would ensure there was "peace and tranquility", adding that the situation was "conducive for free and fair elections".

The private media’s sourcing patterns are shown in Figs 1 and 2.

Fig. 1 Voice distribution in the Private press

Fig. 2 Voice distribution in the private electronic media

Notably, most MDC voices were quoted accusing the ruling party of fanning political violence.

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