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Prime - time Daily Monitoring Report # 2008 - 15
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 04, 2008

This report monitors the political content of ZBC's radio and television programming especially issues relating to the March 29 elections, during prime-time listening and viewing. (It does not include the content of the main news bulletins, which form the basis of separate research).

All stations (Zimbabwe Television, Spot FM and Radio Zimbabwe) are monitored from 0700hrs-1000hrs, 12 noon-1400hrs and 1700hrs-2300hrs.

Summary
The announcement of House of Assembly results continued on ZBC. The election results are still being announced at a snail's pace. By end of day, ZEC had announced results for 199 of the 210 House of Assembly seats. So far MDC (Tsvangirai) faction has 96 seats, ZANU PF has 93 seats, MDC (Mutambara) faction has nine seats and one went to the only successful Independent candidate, Jonathan Moyo (Tsholotso).

At 0045hrs on April 3rd ZEC officials appeared on all stations to complete the announcement for the House of Assembly by releasing the final eight results. Final figures are: MDC (Tsvangirai) 99 seats, ZANU PF 97 seats, MDC (Mutambara) 10, Independent, one. Combined total: 207. Three seats are the subject of a by-election following the deaths of the three MDC (Mutambara) candidates.

Current affairs programmes
ZBC (all stations) aired three broadcast sessions (at 0015hrs, 0730hrs and 1525hrs) where ZEC officials announced House of Assembly election results.

At 0730hrs, ZEC officials apologized for wrongfully awarding the Mazowe South House of Assembly seat to Morgan Chitenga of the MDC (Tsvangirai) faction when in fact Margaret Zinyemba of ZANU PF had apparently won the seat. They said, "Yesterday we announced that Zinyemba Margaret of ZANU PF in Mazowe South Constituency was following Chitenga Morgan of the MDC (Morgan Tsvangirai) who was declared the Member of the House of Assembly. We want to make a correction there; Zinyemba Margaret of ZPF was declared the member of the House of Assembly in Mazowe South. The correct results are as follows, Zinyemba Margaret ZANU PF received 4 109 votes whilst Chitenga Morgan MDC (MTS) received 4 052, Christopher Chitengu of MDC received 1 401, Dendamera Edwin UPP received 178 votes."

After this mistake, one wonders if this was the only mistake that they made.

At 1525hrs, ZBC presenter, Happison Muchechetere, made the following announcement, "Three House of Assembly candidates have died. These are from Redcliff, Gwanda and Mpopoma and elections in these constituencies were postponed. A fourth seat in Muzarabani South has already been won by ZANU PF unopposed that is Edward Raradza. From the total of 188 seats that have been announced the breakdown is as follows ZANU PF 92, MDC (Tsvangirai) 91 and the MDC five. More than 25 women have won seats in these house of assembly contests . . . "

ZBC did not make an attempt to analyze the unprecedented voting trends shown by the results they were announcing. For instance, it did not explain that ZANU PF had lost control of the House of Assembly for the first time since independence, nor did it examine the ruling party's losses, especially in the rural areas previously considered to be its stronghold. The national broadcaster did not have any other programmes on elections outside the announcement of results and the news bulletins. The little information provided was completely inadequate to satisfy Zimbabweans hunger for information about the March 29 election results.

Political music : None

Political advertisements : None

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