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ZEC to put in place measures to ensure responsible coverage of elections
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
Extracted from Weekly Media Update 2008-6
February 11th - Sunday February 17th 2008
February 21, 2008

MMPZ welcomes the announcement by the Zimbabwe Election Commission that it will introduce a code of conduct to promote fair and equitable media coverage of next month's national elections. According to amendments to the country's electoral law, ZEC is mandated to monitor the media's election coverage to ensure fair and equitable publicity to contesting parties as stipulated under domestic and regional guidelines.

Radio Zimbabwe (14/2) and The Herald and Chronicle (15/2) reported ZEC deputy chairman Joyce Kazembe, who is also chairperson of the commission's Media Monitoring Committee, saying their mandate to monitor the elections was meant to ensure a "violence-free event" and that contestants would be granted free and fair media coverage.

The official dailies cited Kazembe saying the media should provide "responsible coverage of elections and avoid fanning violence by publishing inflammatory statements" so as to avoid the Rwandan and Kenyan experiences, where the media were used to stoke ethnic related violence. Reportedly, the electoral authorities' "extensive consultations" with various private and public media houses was meant to develop regulations the media "can buy into" because "we did not want to spring a surprise on you". However, while ZEC's outreach programme to establish good relations with the media is a desirable development because it promotes public confidence in the electoral process, it remains unclear how widespread this consultative process has been, and particularly whether they have engaged the Voluntary Media Council and other representative media organizations.

The commission's capacity to monitor the media also remains vague. For example, ZEC seems already late in establishing a monitoring mechanism to ensure the responsible and ethical conduct of the media, considering that much of the pre-election phase procedures such as the delimitation of constituencies, voter registration, inspection of voters' rolls and nomination of candidates have since been completed. Although Kazembe is quoted in the two government dailies saying ZEC now has the legal mandate "to monitor the coverage of elections by the media from the time of the presidential proclamation of the elections to the period after the announcement of the results", there was very little reported evidence that the commission has planned for this task. For instance, ZEC has still to introduce a code of conduct and provide details of its monitoring operations when polling is just six weeks away.
Notably, only the Zimbabwe Independent (15/2) has questioned ZEC's regulatory competence. Its Editor's Memo queried ZEC's interpretation of a clause in the Electoral Amendment Act: "During an election period, broadcasters and print publishers shall ensure . . . their media do not promote political parties and candidates that encourage violence and hatred against any class of persons in Zimbabwe . . . "

While the Independent noted that during their meeting with ZEC, the commission had construed the clause as directing the media not to report "hateful and inflammatory statements" by politicians "as this could lead to violence", its Editor believed it was not proper for the media "to deliberately excise" such statements as voters had the right to know the personalities of those seeking public office. Said the paper: "For us to deliberately ignore this (hate and inflammatory language) is a great travesty because it only serves the politician whose dark side will never be known and denies the voter an opportunity to make a choice premised on accurate information."

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