Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Daily Media Update No.14
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 02, 2008

MMPZ's daily media updates monitor the output of the domestic print and electronic media, particularly relating to coverage of election issues. Monitoring of the national public broadcaster, ZBC, is confined mostly to the main news bulletins on television and its two main radio stations, Spot FM and Radio Zimbabwe, although prime-time programmes containing political content or material relevant to last week's national elections is also monitored in a separate report. (This includes prime-time political advertising on ZBC). In addition, the main evening news bulletins of two privately owned radio stations broadcasting into Zimbabwe from abroad are monitored, Studio 7 and SW Radio Africa, together with the "news" pages of four web-based online news agencies specializing in news about Zimbabwe

Daily print media report - Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008

Summary
For the first time since the close of voting on Saturday night, the government-controlled newspapers reported the possibility of a run-off for the presidential election between ZANU PF's President Mugabe and the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai.

The Herald and Chronicle cited "the pattern of results in the presidential election show that none of the candidates will garner more than 50 percent of the vote . . . "

By reporting this, the papers clearly suggested that initial results for that election were known, but did not investigate this aspect. Instead, they confused the issue by citing "analysts" projecting that "the pattern of results" in the House of Assembly poll "was pointing to a run-off in the presidential poll."

Their reports on the ongoing vote count were mostly restricted to passively conveying official pronouncements, which avoided addressing the only question consuming the nation's thoughts: why the delayed and seemingly stage-managed release of the election results?

The two dailies carried 20 stories on the elections, nine of which were on administrative issues and eight on warnings against politically motivated violence.

While the papers carried straightforwardly passive news reports on officials and foreign observers appealing for peace during the election period, they also carried two editorial features that portrayed the MDC as a violent party.

Election administration
Apart from their stories about the possibility of a run-off, the government dailies' four reports on the vote-counting process were mostly reported through the eyes of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

One of these, in The Herald, carried the misleading headline: Parties agree on presidential poll results, which merely cited ZEC chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramayi announcing that ZANU PF and the MDC (Tsvangirai) faction had agreed that the "verification and collation of the presidential results would commence in the presence of their candidates or chief election agents, before announcement".

The story did not link this to the controversy haunting ZEC's slow release of the results, which has given rise to growing public concern and speculation of possible rigging. However, it did report Tsvangirai telling a Press briefing that his party had compiled its own election results but " . . . would wait for ZEC before we discuss the circumstances of the final result..."

The Herald's lead story, which carried the suggestion of a presidential run-off, focused mainly on the fact that the two main contesting parties were "heading for a tie" in the House of Assembly contest, but ignored the fact that the combined opposition MDC actually gave them a lead of four seats in the 160 House of Assembly results ZEC had released by 10pm the previous night. Of these, ZANU had won 78 seats, 77 for MDC (Tsvangirai) and MDC-Mutambara (five). Notably, The Herald again carried a full-page tabulated list of 176 House of Assembly results on its inside pages that upstaged the "news" on its front page.

A colourful picture of fist-waving ZANU PF supporters celebrating the victory of their Masvingo South constituency candidate dominated the front page.

The rest of the government papers' stories on the administration of the elections passively reported more commendations of the election process by foreign observer missions, such as COMESA and the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa.

Political violence
The Herald and Chronicle recorded no new cases of political violence in the nine stories they carried on the subject.

However, they ran follow-ups on yesterday's coverage of clashes between supporters of the two MDC factions in St Mary's by reporting on the court appearance of seven activists from the Tsvangirai faction accused of being responsible for the violence.

In addition, The Herald carried two editorial opinions, one of which was a quasi-religious diatribe "By a God-fearing Correspondent", that attempted to discredit the MDC and portray it as a violent party.

The other editorial had a similar objective and resurrected old lies peddled by the government media last year to support this argument, accusing the West of favouring Tsvangirai "as if he is not the same person who plotted an assassination of Zimbabwe's president as a prelude to war; as if it is not unusual for Tsvangirai to be flanked by young thugs from urban areas who just over a year ago went on a terrorising spree . . . fire bombing houses, kombis, police dormitories, and attacking citizens and police in the streets".

The voice distribution for the official dailies is illustrated in Fig. 1

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Herald and Chronicle

Daily electronic media report - Tuesday, April 1st 2008

Summary
The national public broadcaster relied solely on official explanations for the delay in publicizing the results of the weekend's harmonized elections, particularly the presidential ballot.

The focus on all of ZBC's news bulletins continued to be the verdict of observer missions who described the polls as free and fair, which they reported on prominently.

But they failed to balance these opinions with publicly expressed concerns about the electoral process.

This was reflected in the 14 reports they carried on the topic.

The private electronic media's 23 reports on these issues compared the execution of the electoral authorities with regional and international standards for holding democratic elections. They questioned the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's late announcement of the poll results, noting that this was causing public concern and anxiety and gave rise to suspicions of vote rigging.

Election administration
ZBC continued to rely entirely on ZEC's explanations for the late and slow release of the election results.

The broadcaster made no attempt of its own to test the plausibility of ZEC's explanations, nor even sought to explain the details involved in the vote verification exercise, which has been identified as the cause of the delay.

It did not ask ZEC why it was only now "currently receiving the presidential election results from the various provinces" three days after voting had been completed. Instead, ZBC simply relied on the Commission to explain that the "verification and collation will commence in the presence of all candidates or their national chief election agents once all results have been received". ZEC was not asked why this process had taken longer than expected.

ZBC's anxious audiences (8pm) had to content themselves with the already known "news" of results from 140 constituencies showing that the ruling party had won 68 House of Assembly seats, MDC-Tsvangirai (67) and MDC-Mutambara (5).

By way of diversion ZBC continued to prominently and passively report the favourable verdicts of more regional and continental observer missions that effectively dismissed concerns over Zimbabwe's disputed electoral process.

For example, all stations' 8pm bulletins reported the Pan African Parliament's claims that the "basic conditions for credible, free and fair elections . . . existed in the Zimbabwean harmonized elections . . . " but ZBC did not ask how PAP had arrived at this verdict. It just quoted PAP claiming that political parties had held their campaign rallies "in a peaceful, orderly and highly tolerant environment . . . " and that the conduct of the police was "highly professional . . . "

In addition, ZBC quoted PAP commending ZEC's "level of preparedness" and "easy accessibility" but made no attempt to obtain comment from contestants or independent commentators.

By comparison, the private electronic media reported growing public dissatisfaction over the late release of the election results and rising tensions.

They argued that ZEC's administration of the polls fell short of regional standards required for the elections to be declared free and fair.

SW Radio Africa and The Zimbabwe Times, for example, reported "analysts" accusing President Mugabe's government of attempting to rig the polls by delaying the announcement of the presidential result.

For example, it quoted one commentator, Macdonald Lewanika, accusing ZEC of "manipulating" the announcement of the results. Said Lewanika: "Although the results are coming in, province by province, the Commission is not announcing them in that order".

He also noted that "discrepancies were emerging" between ZEC's figures and those obtained by the opposition and independent groups, citing two Bindura constituencies, Mt Darwin West and Goromonzi West, which ZANU PF won.

Studio 7 quoted others making similar observations, including one "analyst", Siphamandla Zondi, who argued that " . . . the manner in which ZEC is managing the tally of votes and the release of results points to unfair electoral practice".

It also quoted Moeletsi Mbeki, brother to the South African president, accusing the authorities of trying to "massage the results to give them the outcome that Mugabe wants to see . . . in order to avoid a run-off"

SW Radio Africa and The Zimbabwe Times, citing unnamed sources within the MDC, reported that the country's defence and security chiefs had "blocked" the announcement of the presidential winner "after it emerged that Mugabe had lost to Tsvangirai".

All the private electronic media also reported government as having deployed security forces in most urban centres in anticipation of public protests should Mugabe be declared the winner.

In addition, they recorded growing international condemnation of Mugabe over the late announcement of the results with SW Radio Africa, for example, quoting the current Slovenian chair of the European Union calling on Mugabe to respect the election outcome and to step down if the results were not in his favour.

Figs 1 and 2 show the sourcing patterns on ZBC and the private electronic media.

Fig 1: Voice distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the private electronic media

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP