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Daily Media Update No.15
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 03, 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 - Thursday 3rd April 2008

Post-election focus
Today the two government controlled dailies, The Herald and Chronicle, deliberately suffocated news that ZANU PF had lost control of the House of Assembly for the first time since independence. Instead, the papers focused on the fact that no party had won an "absolute majority" in the House and that ZANU PF had actually won more of the "popular vote" than the MDC faction led by presidential hopeful, Morgan Tsvangirai.

The papers suggested that if such trends were reflected in the presidential election Tsvangirai "would still fall far short of the total" (needed for an outright victory), "even if almost all those who voted for independent candidates and the minor parties gave their presidential vote to Mr Tsvangirai."

The papers were also careful to ensure they didn't tell their readers that the combined MDC opposition had, in fact, won control of the House and that at least five ministers from President Mugabe's previous Cabinet had lost their seats.

Instead, The Herald's front-page lead, ZANU PF, MDC-T in photo finish, clearly tried to minimize the ruling party's historic defeat and concentrated on the number of votes cast, concluding that "a run-off appears the most likely outcome" in the presidential election because of the greater number of votes for ZANU PF.

While The Herald did provide an interesting provincial breakdown of the voting figures and explored the pattern of voting throughout the provinces at length, it used this to avoid the urgent need to provide some sensible assessment about Mugabe's chances of winning a presidential run-off with Tsvangirai. Nor have the government papers attempted any analysis of how Mugabe would run the country with a minority in Parliament if he won.

Despite the evident popularity of the MDC, the government papers also appear to have returned to their pre-election stance of discrediting the opposition, as stooges of Britain and its allies. For example, among their 15 stories on the elections, the two dailies falsely portrayed Britain's concern over the authorities' delay in releasing the results of the elections as evidence that they were masters of the opposition. They reported the British government as having "now come out in the open as the real power behind the MDC Tsvangirai faction, demanding the release of the results of Zimbabwe's elections that show an opposition victory".

How Britain's concern translated into evidence of them managing the opposition was not explained.

The official dailies also reported that some former white commercial farmers were "threatening new (farm) owners and workers claiming that they will soon be coming back to reclaim the properties as they anticipate an MDC victory in the harmonized polls".

An editorial in The Herald was cut from the same cloth. It described Simba Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai as "unfocused individuals" and "pawns of the British and the Western allies . . . used to sabotage the land reform programme".

No evidence was provided to support these allegations.

The Herald and Chronicle also reported MDC secretary-general, Tendai Biti, as "under fire for announcing its version of the presidential poll results" from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission itself, and ZANU PF secretary for adminstration, Didymus Mutasa.

Another story justified the delay in announcing the results: "ZEC has adopted the well-accepted measure of moving slowly to avoid excitement and conflict . . . " But neither paper dared to explore the real reasons for the authorities' carefully managed release of the election results.

For the first time in the week alternative opinion on the election outcome found expression in the privately owned weeklies; The Zimbabwean and The Financial Gazette. They declared the MDC-Tsvangirai faction the winner of the parliamentary poll, highlighted the delay in the announcement of the results of the presidential ballot, and explored the shortcomings of Zimbabwe's electoral process.

The Financial Gazette, for example, feared that the delay had "created ground for speculation . . . " while The Zimbabwean cited unnamed sources suggesting this was "part of a strategy for fixing election figures, which ZANU PF was advised by the Israeli spy agency, Mossad". The Zimbabwean claimed that ZEC had been "instructed" by the CIO not to release results and "await instructions from them".

No evidence was provided to corroborate its allegations.

The Gazette predicted "heightened tension" and political violence in the event of a presidential poll run-off.
It cited an analyst, Gwinyai Chigwedere, suggesting that President Mugabe could "clamp down on business in another price blitz . . . " and implement the "hurriedly-done indigenization programme" to win the election since a run-off would be "a matter of life and death for ZANU PF".

On the other hand, the paper predicted that losing presidential candidate, Simba Makoni, and Arthur Mutambara of the other MDC faction, would support Tsvangirai to boost his chances of unseating Mugabe.

Contrary to government media reports, The Zimbabwean revealed that not all observers believed that Zimbabwe's harmonized polls were free and fair.

It cited the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa observer mission, for example, saying Zimbabwe's electoral process was "severely wanting". EISA questioned the independence of ZEC, the selective invitation of observers, the shambolic voters' roll and the gerrymandering of constituencies by the delimitation commission, among others.
The two weeklies carried 46 stories on the elections reflecting the importance they gave to the subject.

Figs 1 and 2 show the sourcing patterns of the government papers and the private Press.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Herald and Chronicle

Fig 2: Voice distribution in The Zimbabwean and The Financial Gazette

Daily electronic media report - Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
ZBC continued to display its utterly supine sense of news by failing to provide any sensible, independent analysis of the electoral authorities' calculated and piecemeal release of Saturday's election results.

Despite the public's growing anxiety, ZBC left all explanations up to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, which continued to drag out the release of the House of Assembly results in a way that projected a close contest between ZANU PF and the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC.

The public broadcaster did not even try to analyse the voting patterns based on the results so far released, or to explore their unprecedented implications. It made no attempt to seek expert independent opinion on ZEC's behaviour.

Of ZBC's 15 stories on the post-election process, nine were based on passively relaying ZEC's painful vote counting, while five focused on endorsements of the electoral process by foreign observer missions.

The only other story reported ZANU PF official Chris Mutsvangwa condemning MDC (Tsvangirai) Secretary-General Tendai Biti for "usurping the role of ZEC by spreading unfounded rumours on the results of the presidential election which have not yet been collated, verified and released by the electoral authority" (ZTV 8pm).

Notably, the national broadcaster did not report Biti's announcement about his party's presidential election prospects, nor interpreted it as a product of ZEC's procrastination. ZBC also made no attempt to reconcile foreign observers' opinions of the electoral process with ZEC's heavily criticised vote counting conduct.

For example, ZTV and Spot FM's evening bulletins passively reported that the East African observer mission had endorsed the election as "free and fair" and that the East African Community could "learn a lot from the way elections were conducted".

The private online publication, ZimOnline, portrayed a different picture. It quoted the head of the EAC team, Clarkson Karan criticizing ZEC's "undue delays," in issuing results, saying it was "fuelling anxiety that could spark a chaotic situation".

The story formed part of 23 reports that the private electronic media carried on the post-election period.
The reports continued to reflect local and international concern over ZEC's delays in releasing the poll results, which Biti alleged had "created a vacuum and caused anxiety and disappointment" (Zimdaily).

The private online publication also reported the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights adding a new dimension to the matter.

They argued that according to the Electoral Act, only the presidential results needed to be verified and collated at the National Command Centre, while those from the two Houses of Assembly should have been declared at parliamentary and Senate constituency collation centres when the results for each were known. There was no legal requirement to have these results announced by the National Command Centre since they should already have been in the public domain.

SW Radio also reported that a coalition of 18 local civil society groups had signed an "urgent petition" to the heads of SADC and the AU urging them to intervene in the election results crisis saying their delayed release "betrays an attempt by ZANU PF to manipulate the numbers in order to favour ZANU PF".

The private electronic media also reported the US and European Union expressing concern over ZEC's conduct, and viewed The Herald suggestion yesterday (2/4) that a run-off would be necessary in the presidential poll as reflecting official thinking.

However, ZimOnline reported ZEC Chief Elections Officer, Lovemore Sekeramai, refusing to comment, saying the results of the presidential election were still being verified.

Unlike ZBC, the private electronic media reported the announcement of the MDC's assessment of the presidential result, which Biti claimed was "based on actual votes cast, counted and verified by ZEC," at each individual polling station (SW Radio Africa). They also reported government's dismissive response to it, with SW Radio Africa, for example, quoting Deputy Minister of Information Bright Matonga describing the MDC's victory claims as "mischievous".

Studio 7 reported presidential spokesman George Charamba threatening "unspecified action" against the MDC leadership, claiming they had "violated the law in making public unofficial election results".
Charamba did not specify the law the opposition party had allegedly breached and neither was he asked to.

Figs 1 and 2 show the voice sourcing pattern of ZBC and the private electronic media.

Fig 1: Voice Distribution on ZBC

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the private electronic media

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