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Daily Media Update No.40
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
April 28, 2008

Post-election focus
Today, the government dailies again took advantage of their monopoly of the market to suppress important information and supplant this with blatantly distorted news on the causes of Zimbabwe's post-election standoff. Conspicuous was The Herald and Chronicle's deceitful attempts to blame the election stalemate on alleged meddling by Britain and "its allies" without providing any evidence of this. They merely advanced conspiracies to sustain their accusations.

In this light they lumped together all those voicing concern over the post-election crisis as advancing Britain's supposed neo-colonialist interest in the country. The Herald cartoon aptly illustrated this distorted perspective. It depicted SADC chairman and Zambian President, Levy Mwanawasa, as a puppet of British and American interests following his efforts to find an urgent regionally-mediated solution to the worsening election impasse.

However, the real culprits behind the crisis, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, whose continued suppression of the presidential election results has stoked political tensions, escaped any censure. For example, although the dailies' Sunday stablemates yesterday reported that ZEC would be inviting presidential candidates or their election agents to verify the presidential results today, there was no follow-up whatsoever on the matter; there was not even an attempt to identify the eight unnamed constituencies among the 18 where ZEC chairman, George Chiweshe said on Saturday, the recounting exercise had been completed "without significant changes" to the original results.

While this news gave rise to reports in the international media that the recount had confirmed ZANU PF had lost its parliamentary majority, this important information remained suppressed in the local media. In fact, it represents an unforgiveable dereliction of basic journalistic responsibility not to have reported such a development to a nation starved of such facts. Equally, there was no news about the other negative indicators of the results hold-up, such as the post-election violence, committed mostly by ZANU PF supporters and security agents against perceived MDC supporters, according to private media reports. Only those voices that expressed favourable comments about the authorities received positive coverage. For example, the papers prominently reported the criticism by Zambia's founding president, Kenneth Kaunda, of British premier Gordon Brown's calls for an arms embargo against Zimbabwe, saying he was "not qualified to comment on the challenges facing Zimbabwe".

However, the context in which Brown made the statements was not given.They simply reported Kaunda saying Brown's calls were "misplaced and do little to solve the problems", adding that Zimbabweans were "trying to find a way out of their problems by talking about a government of national unity". But the government dailies' passive coverage of anything that appeared acceptable to President Mugabe and his party also led to contradictions. This was evident in the way The Herald failed to link Kaunda's talk of a government of national unity with an opinion piece it carried, Unity government impossible.

The editorial, notable more for its inflammatory and hateful language against the MDC and the West than for its rationality, merely amplified the authorities' propagandist refrain of the MDC as a Western "stooge party" that could never work with ZANU PF. If this were to happen, it argued, it could be akin to having US President "George Bush and Osama Bin Laden sharing the White House".

In addition, its arguments were basically based on assumptions. For example, it provided no facts to support its portrayal of the MDC as a non-Zimbabwean party desperate to accept a unity of government in "whatever form'' or that the party "has the worst history of all forms of intimidation and violence". Neither did it authenticate its "indications" that none of the presidential contestants won an outright majority in the presidential poll to justify its calls for a run-off. The editorial even suggested that if he were to win in the election, Tsvangirai should not be allowed to rule the country since he was a Western creation and thus would reverse the gains of the liberation struggle.
It argued: "We have accommodated Tsvangirai and his misguided elements to live in our free Zimbabwe but trying to force us to allow him to rule Zimbabwe even without a mandate is being provocative."

Another Herald editorial by Peter Mavunga, advanced a similarly dangerous argument. It reported black audiences of a British community radio station, Radio Galaxy, as having been generally "appalled by the prospect of seeing Zimbabwe's gains lost through the elections of March 29" during a "phone-in" discussion on Zimbabwe. Such editorials represent an appalling abuse of the media in the promotion of ideas that incite hatred and disaffection against a legitimate party that has clearly become more popular than ZANU PF. Worse still, these articles suggest that democracy might have to be abandoned in order to protect the gains of the liberation struggle. Are these the first signs of an attempt to legitimize in the public mind the possibility of a coup against the popular will of the people?

To reinforce this impression the government dailies continued to portray President Mugabe and ZANU PF as the only ones with the interests of Zimbabweans at heart and thus indispensable. For example, The Herald, reprinted the remarks of "Industry Minister" Obert Mpofu at the official launch of the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair last Friday, reverently describing Mugabe as a "legendary revolutionary", "luminary", and "outstanding statesmen", among a host of other glowing terms.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Herald and Chronicle

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