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Daily Media Update No.18
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 06, 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 - Sunday 6th April 2008

Post-election focus
Eight days after Zimbabweans elected a president, and with the main contestants in the poll (ZANU PF and the MDC Tsvangirai) confessing to already knowing results of the presidential election, strangely there was still no news in the government-run Sunday Mail on why the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission was still holding onto the outcome.
Neither did the paper query the ruling party's resolution to further delay the release of the results pending its request to ZEC to "recount and audit" all its electoral material on the presidential vote after the party discovered "errors and miscalculations" in the compilation of results in four constituencies in Mberengwa.

Why ZEC was being asked to "recount" a vote that it says was still being tallied also remained unexplained. Notably, no comment was sought from the electoral authorities, whose defence of the late release of the election results have been premised on the need for "meticulous verification" of the votes.

Besides, there was no establishing the extent to which the "errors and calculations" had "prejudiced" Mugabe in the absence of an official result.

Moreover, there was no reconciliation of the ZANU PF action with a report in the same paper that the MDC had lodged a High Court application compelling ZEC to announce the presidential result, saying the delay in the announcement had "caused so much anxiety" in the country.

No questions were asked about ZANU PF's sudden portrayal of a re-run as unavoidable. The Sunday Mail reported the ruling party's legal committee member Patrick Chinamasa claiming "party statistics point to an imminent re-run of the poll", adding that it "cannot be avoided". However, Chinamasa did not disclose the statistics, neither was he asked to.

Instead, the paper narrowly interpreted Chinamasa's claims that the MDC had made overtures to ZANU PF to form a government of national unity as "an apparent bid to avoid an imminent presidential run-off with President Mugabe".

It passively cited Chinamasa saying his party had dismissed the MDC approach - allegedly made through an unnamed "known businessman" - on two reasons: that a run-off was inevitable and that the two parties differed in political ideologies. The paper quoted him: "ZANU PF is for asserting our sovereignty and economically empowering Zimbabweans, but the MDC wants to surrender our sovereignty so that the country becomes a colony under the tutelage of the British."

No comment was sought from the MDC. Neither did the paper reconcile Chinamasa's statements with Tsvangirai's insistence at a Press conference that he had won the presidential poll, saying ZANU PF's call for a run-off was "a foreign backdoor attempt to reverse the people's victory".

In the report: Tsvangirai reluctant to go into presidential run-off, The Sunday Mail tried to divert attention from the import of Tsvangirai's standpoint by depicting him as "jittery" and "at pains to explain his party's position".
In addition, the paper reported Tsvangirai as having made "a u-turn" when he attempted to qualify his possible participation in a re-run. Consequently, his offer for an internal negotiation with President Mugabe "to begin the process of a peaceful and orderly democratic transition of government" was not fully explored.

The government weekly discredited the MDC victory in the House of Assembly, saying it had used "sanctions to win the elections". It also distorted the facts on the Senate election results by presenting the ruling party as having won.

However, the election results showed that ZANU PF and the two MDC formations were tied at 30 seats though the opposition shared their seats: 24 for the Tsvangirai formation and six for the Arthur Mutambara-led one.

In addition, it passively reported on, and amplified government threats of violence against white commercial farmers who were reportedly preparing to 're-invade' farms they were dispossessed of in anticipation of an MDC victory.

However, no single case of such 'invasion' was recorded.

These reports formed part of the 15 reports the government weekly carried on the elections.The Standard adopted a more critical approach in the 11 stories it carried on the subject. It reported the opposition and commentators advising Mugabe against participating in a re-run, contending he would lose. For example, The Standard gave extensive coverage to Tsvangirai's Press briefing at which he called upon President Mugabe to accept defeat, saying he did not believe the country should be held at ransom by "a person who had lost the election". He told the paper he was aware that "Mugabe intended to use violence, bankrolled by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, to win the run-off".

The Standard reported the opposition leader calling on the international community to ensure Mugabe leaves office "immediately" to allow his party to form a government of national unity, saying consultations on the issue were underway. Tsvangirai argued that without a majority in Parliament Mugabe would be like a "lame duck" president. The Standard story, Mugabe warned over poll run-off and its editorial: A defeated dictator's last gasp, reflected the same sentiments.

The story, for example, quoted former Information Minister Jonathan Moyo wondering "why the president, given all he has done for this country, should subject himself to indignity?" Added Moyo: "The right thing for the president in this situation is to withdraw. He must realize that having lost the first round, he cannot win the second."

Despite the anticipated violence in the envisaged poll re-run, The Standard editorial viewed a Mugabe win as untenable, saying: "The MDC's 'Mugabe must go' campaign has penetrated even the remotest villages and found resonance."

In another story, the paper noted that war veterans, state security agents and ZANU PF supporters had already started setting up bases in the Midlands province and other parts of the country as the ruling party planned a national "witch-hunt" of party members suspected of sabotaging Mugabe's bid for a sixth presidential term.
It reported one candidate "who refused to be named for fear of retribution" confirming that CIO agents had asked her "how she had managed more votes than Mugabe in her constituency".

Fig 1 and 2 show the voice sourcing patterns in the government and private press.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Sunday Mail

Fig 2: Voice distribution in The Standard

Daily Electronic Media Report - Saturday April 5th 2008

Post-election focus
ZBC (5/4) continued to show lack of interest in the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's late release of the presidential election results that it even ignored to report the fact that the MDC had taken the electoral authorities to court over the delay.

Neither did it interrogate the rationale behind the ruling party's declaration that it was ready for the presidential poll run-off before the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission publicized the outcome of that vote. Rather, the broadcaster focused on misleading its audiences that ZANU PF had won the senatorial polls, having garnered 30 seats compared to MDC (Tsvangirai) [24] and MDC (Mutambara) [six].

It ignored the fact that combined, the MDC had attained the same number of seats as ZANU PF, and that for the first time since independence the ruling party had failed to defeat the opposition in parliamentary elections.
ZBC also failed to verify reports that some former white commercial farmers were threatening to evict new black farm owners from their farms in anticipation of an MDC government following the party's alleged victory in last week's elections. Instead, ZBC passively cited senior ruling party officials and war veterans threatening violence against the white farmers.

Radio Zimbabwe (8pm), for example, docilely recorded war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda "warning" the farmers against "provoking Zimbabweans", adding that the recent elections had "given whites an opportunity to recolonise the country". ZTV (8pm) also reported war veterans in Masvingo as having resolved to "occupy all white-owned farms in the province in reaction to reports that former white commercial farmers were trickling back into the country to re-occupy the land". It announced that the war veterans "had already occupied a farm owned by . . . Goddard" and "gave him 10 hours to vacate the farm".

There was no examination of the implications of such action on private property rights and investor confidence.
The national broadcaster avoided news of human rights violations and politically motivated violence after the ruling party's defeat in last week's House of Assembly polls.

Only Spot FM (8am) reported the arrest of two South African technicians "for operating without accreditation". Reportedly, the two had "come to cover the elections and their broadcasting equipment were impounded as exhibit". However, the station did not view this incident as a violation of Press freedom. This story was part of the 15 reports ZBC carried on the topic.

The private electronic media continued to report on the growing anxiety over the belated announcement of the presidential election results. They analysed the implications, as well as tested the validity of ZEC's justification of the inordinate delay.

In addition, the private electronic media reported post-election human rights violations in the country, which included the arrest of two South Africa engineers for allegedly violating the country's tough media laws. For example, Zimdaily accused ZEC of "partiality" and "incompetence" following its failure to pronounce the outcome of presidential race seven days after the polls. It cited "analyst" MacDonald Lewanika dismissing ZEC's reasons for the delay as "inadequate" as "all the results were displayed outside all polling stations at the close of counting and verification on March 29".

Lewanika called on the electoral authority to "urgently" release the results to "restore some measure of confidence in the electoral process".

Similarly, Zimdaily reported churches in Manicaland Province as having appealed to ZEC to "ensure that the presidential vote is announced immediately". They argued that the delay had "created a dangerous power vacuum" which "created conditions for chaos and delayed the process of national cohesion and healing".
The private online publication also alleged that the ruling party had "put in place elaborate plans to resuscitate war veterans", and "roped in the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operatives and the National Youth Service" to "unleash a wave of terror in the rural areas to bludgeon the electorate into voting for ZANU PF" in the presidential election run-off. The publication cited last Thursday's arrest of foreign journalists, and the raid on the rooms used by MDC officials at Meikles Hotel, as part of government's crackdown on the opposition. It cited an unnamed source accusing the Reserve Bank of "funding this crude ZANU PF run-off operation". However, no comment was sought from the RBZ.

The Zimbabwe Times made similar observations. It argued that Zimbabwe could "soon plunge into a new wave of bloodshed" following war veterans' threats to invade white-owned farms in response to reports that some former white commercial farmers were preparing to reclaim their land in the event of an MDC elections win. The publication dismissed allegations of planned invasions leveled against the former white farmers as "a smokescreen to allow the war veterans to cordon off the rural areas and threaten them into voting for Mugabe in the run-off".

In fact, Studio 7 quoted MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, resisting the idea of a re-run, saying: "ZANU PF is preparing a war against the people. In the run-off, violence will be the weapon . . . " He argued that a run-off was a "back-door approach to reverse the people's victory". This report formed part of the 22 stories the private electronic media carried on the topic.

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

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