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Daily Media Update No.32
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 20, 2008

Post-election focus
While the privately owned Standard was reporting a widespread campaign of violence against MDC supporters that has claimed as many as 10 lives so far, The Sunday Mail and Sunday News (20/4) continued to passively report on the country's political crisis as normal electoral procedure in the nine stories they carried. Their editorials continued to allege conspiracies against ZANU PF by the Western media, the British and the MDC-T.

The Sunday Mail's report on the start of the recount of votes in 23 constituencies by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission attempted to present an atmosphere of organized calm as the "recounting kicked off smoothly". But it then carried a litany of late starts and vague references to a number of disputes that were "eventually resolved" without saying how. It also did not mention how long the process would take, although a ZEC advertisement in the same paper stated that it would take "at least three days". There was obviously therefore no attempt to ask ZEC why the process would take so long, nor did the paper make an effort to inquire how it was possible to recount the presidential election results when the result had never been made public.

While The Sunday Mail attempted to sanitize preparations for the recount, The Sunday News reported a number of electoral irregularities characterising the process. For example, it reported that in Zhombe constituency 10 presiding officers failed to turn up amid reports that two of them had migrated to Botswana and South Africa. The paper also mentioned that in Silobela constituency, five boxes were unsealed. Such problems were not clearly mentioned in The Sunday Mail illustrating how the paper is suppressing important information that should be in the public domain.
The government-controlled dailies also continued with their propaganda news stories and editorials aimed at discrediting and dismissing concerns raised by the MDC over political violence committed against its members allegedly by ZANU PF activists and security agents. For example, the paper's regular columnist, Media and Information Commission chairman, Tafataona Mahoso, dismissed as Western propaganda testimony given to the British Broadcasting Corporation by a seriously injured MDC activist who claimed ZANU PF supporters were responsible. Mahoso argued that the appearance of the man's wounds suggested that he was either " . . . involved in a horrific traffic accident or he was mauled by a wild animal." The comment also accused the Western media of peddling falsehoods and sensationalizing the situation in Zimbabwe. This illustrates how the state-controlled media use irony to distort and downplay serious issues that cast ZANU PF in a poor light.

The usual conspiracies linking the MDC to the British and United States also found space in both papers. For example, The Sunday News published a dire piece of propagandist nonsense that first saw the light of day in last Thursday's Herald accusing the MDC of planning to hand over important parastatals to Britain and America, regardless of the fact that the party had disowned the document. The reporter's claim that the document, allegedly signed by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, had been "leaked to The Sunday News" nicely illustrates the clumsy coordination of the government-controlled propaganda machine.

The Sunday Mail's columnist Munyaradzi Huni also perpetuated the myth that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown initiated the emergency SADC summit which prompted Tsvangirai " . . . to go shopping for support in the region", and that he acted under instruction from Western nations. The Sunday News reported one incident of political violence in which four MDC "thugs" were said to have unleashed violence against ZANU PF supporters in Masvingo.

Meanwhile, the private papers, The Standard and The Zimbabwean on Sunday, exposed a seriously flawed recount exercise and 16 new incidents of politically motivated violence in the 48 reports they carried on Zimbabwe's post-election crisis.

The two private papers gave extensive coverage to the nationwide increase in politically motivated post-election violence in their 18 stories, some of which were accompanied by pictures of MDC supporters with gruesome injuries. For example The Zimbabwean on Sunday showed the mutilated body of the MDC's Hurungwe East organizing secretary, Tapiwa Mbawanda, as clear evidence of the brutality being visited upon ordinary civilians. The Standard led the paper with the news that the MDC were claiming that 10 of its supporters had been killed. Both papers blamed the violence on a well organized campaign carried out by ZANU PF activists to punish voters for supporting the opposition.

The Standard exposed the major reason why the MDC had refused to participate in the recounting process, quoting the party's spokesperson Nelson Chamisa saying they were not taking part because " . . . we have discovered that ballot boxes were opened and the seals broken."

The paper also tried to highlight some of the reasons for the delay in the start of the recounting exercise. For example it reported that MDC officials alleged that the voters' roll for one polling station, Domboshava Primary School, was missing; that the ballot boxes were in disarray; and that the used and unused material was in a mess.
However, neither the private nor state-controlled papers explained why the MDC's polling agents were evidently present at the recounting centres when the party had declared that it would not participate.

The private papers continued to carry reports condemning South African President, Thabo Mbeki, for claiming that there "is no crisis" in Zimbabwe by quoting various international media and analysts denouncing Mbeki's statement. For example the Washington Post called Mbeki's policy on Zimbabwe "perverse and immoral".

The paper also reported that a Chinese ship loaded with arms destined for Zimbabwe had been diverted to Mozambique after South African unions refused to unload it in Durban.

Fig. 1 shows the voice sourcing patterns in The Sunday Mail and The Sunday News

Fig 1: Voice distribution in the official press

Fig. 2 shows the voice sourcing patterns in The Standard and The Zimbabwean on Sunday

Fig 2: Voice distribution in the private press

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