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Electoral issues
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2008-1
Monday January 7th - Sunday January 16th, 2008
January 17, 2008

As the New Year opened and the countdown to the harmonised presidential, parliamentary and council elections in March began, there was still precious little useful information in the official media regarding their preparations. For example, none of their 29 reports during the week (ZBC [15] and official papers [14]) provided useful insight into the organisation and management of the elections or gave equitable coverage to the campaign activities of the different contestants. These media's failure to give reasonable access to all contesting parties, for example, contravened the SADC principles and guidelines on the conduct of democratic elections. These principles declare that all political parties contesting elections should be given equal access to the state (publicly funded) media.

ZBC also ignored the spirit of its own guidelines under the Broadcasting Act, which require that broadcasting stations grant "reasonable and equal opportunities for the broadcasting of election matter to all political parties contesting the election". Only the private media tried to give balanced coverage of the preparations and raised the importance of transparent and accessible pre-election procedures in the 39 monitored stories. Of these, 18 appeared in the private electronic media and 21 in Print.

a) Political rallies/campaigns
All the government media's 20 reports on political parties' campaign activities focussed exclusively on ZANU PF and ignored the preparations of other parties.

In fact, with polling due in just over two months, the state broadcaster has only aired the opinions of government and ruling party officials and has not attempted to obtain the opinions of competing political parties and candidates, thereby depriving the electorate of important information that could influence the way people will vote.

ZBC simply restricted itself to the promotion of the ruling party's activities. For example, ZTV (9/1,8pm) gave the top story slot to ZANU PF National Political Commissar Elliot Manyika merely calling on "aspiring candidates and party members to gear up for the primary elections" without attempting to balance this with news of how opposition parties were faring.

There was also no attempt to question the timing of ZANU PF donations of agricultural inputs such as fertiliser to villagers during a party function (ZTV 7/1, 6pm). The government papers adopted the same attitude. The private media gave more balanced coverage of the different parties' electoral preparations in 16 stories on campaign-related activities: ZANU PF (5), MDC (10) and ZAPU (1). They exposed ZANU PF's vote-buying tactics with The Standard (13/1) reporting, for example, how the party was politicising grain distribution in Matabeleland.

b) Administrative issues
The government media papered over the authorities' controversial poll preparations. Their six stories on the topic did not question the alleged militarization of the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC), the contentious execution of the delimitation and voter registration exercises and the implications of President Mugabe's refusal to postpone the elections to provide more time for the implementation of the resolutions of the SADC-backed talks between ZANU PF and the MDC. For example, the government media did not question the late completion of the delimitation of wards and constituencies and its impact on political parties' preparations. There was also no information on the organisation and management of the coming polls; who is eligible to vote, what identification is needed, the number of polling stations required to conduct the multiple elections successfully, or the quantity and nature of those required to adequately staff the stations.

The Herald (14/1) confined itself to official pronouncements and quoted Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa announcing that the delimitation report "was ready" and "would be presented to President Mugabe early in the week". He blamed "erratic power cuts" for its delayed compilation. Earlier, the paper and the Chronicle (12/1) dismissed MDC concerns about the opaque nature of the electoral process as "hypocritical as all these issues had been agreed on with opposition negotiators . . . " as if the need to inform the public counted for nothing. For example, the papers alleged, without providing evidence, that the opposition party's call for the elections' postponement "was an instruction from (the West) . . . to give them time to reunite and come up with a proper campaign".

ZBC did not carry any reports on administrative electoral processes.

More informed coverage only appeared in the private media, which devoted 19 reports to the issue: private electronic media [nine] and private papers [10].

The reports largely exposed flaws in the administration of the polls, condemned by the opposition, local and regional election watchdogs as not conducive for the holding of a free and fair plebiscite. For example, Studio 7 (7/1) reported the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) and the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) complaining that the government was keeping the electorate in the dark about important election issues. It quoted EISA contending that ZEC had "no mandate to determine" that elections be held in March considering that the ZANU PF/MDC talks were still not over, adding that there should be an investigation into how constituency delimitation had been conducted if "stakeholders remained disgruntled with the process".

The private media also reported MDC resistance to ZEC's refusal to postpone the March polls citing the on-going talks. New Zimbabwe (7/1) recorded the opposition party accusing government of trying to "rig" the election "through a biased and opaque voter registration that sought to disenfranchise the young population and urban voters where the opposition enjoys majority support". The Standard also lamented government's preparations, citing ZESN arguing that holding elections in March "would not give adequate time to put in place all logistical requirements such as voter education".

c) Political Violence
Only the private media reported on politically motivated violence in the week, recording two incidents. The Zimbabwean (10/1) reported the assault on Christmas Eve of a suspected MDC supporter Charles Sigauke by state security agents in Chimanimani and his subsequent death the following day; while The Standard reported ZANU PF youths as having attacked MDC members who were on their way to a rally in Mbare last Saturday.

However, The Standard report lacked police confirmation. In addition, SW Radio Africa (7/1) revealed that ZANU PF was forcing traditional chiefs in "most" parts of the Midlands to take charge of the party's cell and branch structures "in an attempt to coerce villagers to vote" for the ruling party. The government media avoided these developments, confining themselves to reporting appeals, mainly by the police, for peaceful campaigning. The different manner in which the official and private media covered electoral issues is reflected in their sourcing patterns (Figs 1 to 3).

Fig 1: Voice Distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the government Press

Fig 3: Voice Distribution in the private electronic media

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