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Daily Media Update No.20
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 08, 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 - Tuesday 8th April 2008
Post-election focus
The Herald and Chronicle (8/4) diverted attention from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's baffling silence on the presidential election results with ZANU PF accusations of votes manipulation against its presidential candidate, Robert Mugabe, by the electoral authorities.

Apart from a single story in which the papers reported the High Court agreeing to hear an application from the MDC (Tsvangirai) seeking the court's intervention in the release of the results, none of their 19 stories on post-election developments displayed interest in ZEC's withholding of the results.

Rather, the official dailies, especially The Herald, limited their attention to the arrest of five ZEC officials for allegedly "tampering" with Mugabe's presidential vote, prejudicing him of "4 993 votes" cast in four unnamed constituencies.

Reportedly, the matter came to light after "inconsistencies" were detected in the V11 and V23 forms used to record election results. According to the papers, the V11 form is used to record results at polling stations and is signed by all agents of the contestants while the V23 collates polling station results within a ward before they are forwarded to the National Command Centre. Reportedly, it was during the transfer of results from the V11 to V23 forms that the ZEC officials allegedly undercounted Mugabe's votes.

However, the paper's stories left many questions than answers.

For example, they did not identify who had unearthed the anomalies; how they had accessed the V23 forms from the National Command Centre when the counting process was, according to ZEC, still in progress; and why ZANU PF was determined to dispute a result that was not yet out.

Moreover, there was no information on when the ZEC officials had been arrested or appeared in court. Even more, there was no comment from the electoral authorities on the vote rigging allegations against them.

The Herald, for example, merely mentioned that the arrests came "barely a week" after ZANU PF decided to contest results in 16 House of Assembly constituencies, alleging that some ZEC officials had been "bribed to doctor results during the counting process to prejudice the ruling party".

In addition, it passively quoted police chief spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena saying the ZEC officials, arrested in Masvingo, Manicaland and Mashonaland West, were "currently being prosecuted through the courts in their respective areas".

Besides, there was no reconciliation between ZANU PF's election complaints with the papers' passive coverage of foreign observers' endorsement of the elections as having been free and fair.

Otherwise the report, like several others that the government dailies carried on ZANU PF's post electoral issues, campaigned for the ruling party by portraying it as a victim of opposition and Western machinations to oust it from power due to its principled nationalist stand on the empowerment of the black majority.

For example, The Herald appeared more interested in reporting South African President Thabo Mbeki's resistance of "Western pressure to criticize Zimbabwe's just-ended elections" than establishing whether the elections were conducted above board.

Except for the MDC's High Court election results petition report, the government dailies' coverage of the opposition's post-election activities presented them in bad light.

One of these misleadingly reported that the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC had rebuffed advances by the rival MDC (Tsvangirai) to form a coalition ahead of the speculated run-off although they cited none of the two parties confirming this.

Only the Chronicle reported the remand hearings on foreign journalists Stephen Beven and Barry Berrak, arrested last week for allegedly covering elections without accreditation as required under the repressive Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Though both were released out of custody on $300m bail each, there were no explanations as to why Berrak's residential address was listed as Dandaro Clinic in Borrowdale.

The Chronicle also carried a follow-up on the court reappearance, on fresh charges, of two South African engineers days after they had been "removed from remand" on charges of breaching AIPPA by covering a Press conference by Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu without accreditation. The two, who were reportedly arrested upon being freed on the first charge, were now facing charges of "defeating the course of justice" after they allegedly connived with their lawyers to apply for "removal from remand before regional magistrate Mr Steven Musona in the absence of the prosecutor".

The Herald and Chronicle's voice sourcing patterns appear in fig 1.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in the official dailies

Daily electronic media report - Monday 7th April 2008

Post-election focus
ZBC (7/4) starved the public of information on the belated release of the outcome of the presidential polls and mounting domestic and international pressure against the delay.

It equally censored the High Court's admission it had jurisdiction to hear a case in which the MDC (Tsvangirai) is challenging the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's hold-up of the results.

Besides, the broadcaster did not question the legality of the ruling party's requests for a vote recount of the presidential poll under the country's electoral laws considering that ZEC were still yet to publicize the results of the election.

Radio Zimbabwe (6am), for example, passively recorded ZANU PF demanding ZEC to "recount" and "verify presidential results to correct anomalies", which it claimed, "cost" the party in the polls. In addition, the station and ZTV passively reported the arrest of seven ZEC officials on allegations of "tampering with election results" to "prejudice" the ruling party presidential candidate, President Mugabe, without providing figures to ascertain the extent to which he was disadvantaged.

Neither was there an attempt to seek clarification from ZEC on the matter.

In contrary, ZBC reported negatively on the MDC, portraying them as either desperately trying to persuade ZANU PF into forming a government of national unity to avoid the presidential run-off or unnecessarily calling on the international community to intervene.

For example, ZBC (6 & 8pm) carried a one-sided report in which they recorded the ruling party's legal committee member, Patrick Chinamasa, "dismissing" the MDC 's attempts to form a government of national unity with ZANU PF.

He claimed that the party sent Ian Makone and Elton Mangoma and businessman Joe Mutizwa to ZANU PF to "negotiate" a government of national unity to "avoid a run-off".

There was no attempt to verify this with the MDC.

Similarly, ZBC drowned MDC's calls to the international community to urge the authorities to publicize the outcome of the presidential ballot in government responses. For example, ZBC quoted Zimbabwe's permanent representative to the United Nations, Boniface Chidyausiku, dismissing the party's call for UN intervention in the matter as baseless and "ill-informed".

Chidyausiku said Zimbabwe was " not a threat to international peace and security . . . it held an exemplary election . . . (there) was no violence before, during and after the polls".

The private electronic media drew attention to growing domestic and international disquiet over the prolonged announcement of the results in 20 stories.

They also highlighted the High Court ruling that it had jurisdiction to hear the MDC court application seeking an order to compel ZEC to release the results, and questioned the legality of the ruling party's order for a vote recount.

The Zimbabwe Times, for example, quoted lawyer Arnold Tsunga arguing that ZANU PF's result recount request contravened Zimbabwe's electoral laws, which did not have "any provision for a recount of votes at all and especially during the verification process". Tsunga said Section 67A(1) and (2) of the Electoral Act stipulated: "Recounting of votes should be done on the written request of a candidate for a constituency and should be done within 48 hours of the declaration to be duly elected".

The publication claimed to have sought comment from the ZEC chairman, George Chiweshe, who reportedly refused to comment.

Zimdaily alleged government interference in the MDC's court challenge. It claimed there was "pressure on the judiciary to delay hearing the case until ZANU PF has coordinated a strategy to deal with its electoral loss".

However, the private online publication did not substantiate its claims.

The private electronic media also reported the arrest of seven ZEC officials on allegations of rigging, which SW Radio Africa, for example, interpreted as part of ZANU PF's "bid to hunt for scapegoats to use in a legal bid to overturn its defeat in the polls".

It reported senior ZEC officials as under CIO surveillance as government "feared that they might leak information" on the results.

Similarly, ZimOnline recorded the arrest of a policeman, Admire Makaya, in Masvingo for allegedly "asking ZEC officials at polling station in the province why they were recounting votes after four previous counts had shown that Mugabe was trailing Tsvangirai". Police spokesman Oliver Mandipaka confirmed the arrest but said Makaya was arrested for contravening the Police Act "which forbids the police from taking part in political activities".

Studio 7 reported UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressing "concern" over the delayed release of the presidential election and urged ZEC to release them "expeditiously and with transparency" while SW Radio Africa reported the Botswana People's Party leader, Bernard Balikani, urging SADC and the AU to "intervene in Zimbabwe before the situation gets worse".

However, all the private electronic media failed to establish the exact reasons behind MDC leader Tsvangirai's trip to South Africa. Studio 7, for example, cited the party's secretary general, Tendai Biti, saying Tsvangirai had flown there to "urge senior officials there to increase pressure on Mugabe to concede defeat and step down" while ZimOnline claimed that he went there "for talks with Mbeki's government", without elaboration.

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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