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Daily Media Update 47
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
June 21, 2008

Political violence
The government papers' maintained their selective coverage of the politically motivated violence in the country by giving the lopsided impression that the MDC was entirely responsible even in light of the occasional official letup showing ZANU PF's culpability.

While The Herald and Chronicle reported Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri saying police had arrested 156 ZANU PF supporters for perpetrating violence against the arrests of 390 MDC activists, there was no attempt to discuss the ruling party's role.

Instead, despite the revelations, the papers passively reported Chihuri exclusively accusing the opposition and its "Western sponsors" for the "wave of ugly scenes of political violence that has rocked the country . . . yet they brazenly claim to be innocent victims".

Chihuri claimed the opposition violence, which he said was being "unleashed" through "their notorious so-called Democratic Resistance Committees" was aimed at "disturbing the peace and reversing the gains of the liberation struggle" as well as "intimidating voters to influence the outcome of the elections".

No attempt was made to question Chihuri's openly partisan comments as illustrated by his refusal to rebuke ZANU PF and explain its motive for the violence. Neither did the papers query the accuracy of the police statistics. This was especially so in light of several reports in which the police have been accused of selectively applying the law, arresting opposition victims of the violence who had approached them to report their assaults while leaving their tormentors free.

Notably, some of those responsible for the ZANU PF violence against MDC supporters, some of whose crimes date back to the 2000 and 2002 elections, are still reportedly free.

The papers passively quoted Chihuri: "All the violence on Zimbabwe and its leadership by MDC-T and its international partners is because of this land issue. The Rhodesians have even gone to the SADC Tribunal trying to override our laws on land." He added: "MDC-T and its sponsors must not make spurious claims of victimisation when police descend on them to quell the violence." There was also no attempt to reconcile Chihuri's comments with those made by President Mugabe, at a rally at White City Stadium in Bulawayo. The two official dailies passively reported Mugabe accusing the MDC of making false claims of persecution, alleging that the opposition party was "busy" compiling a list of alleged victims of political violence by "our soldiers". "They say this so that they can later say the elections were not free and fair, which is a damn lie." The reports formed part of the five stories the government papers carried projecting the MDC as a violent organization. In addition, the Chronicle reported an incident in which four ZANU PF members from Madlambuzi area in Bulilima District were allegedly assaulted by nine suspected MDC activists while distributing campaign material. As in all their reports on the violence, no comment was sought from the MDC.

Administrative issues
With six days to go before polling in the presidential run-off, readers of the government dailies still remained no wiser about the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's readiness to conduct the election. All six reports the papers carried on this issue merely focused on ZEC's gazetting new electoral laws and ZBC's defence for censoring the MDC from the national broadcaster. Neither paper attempted to examine the rationale for these measures. For example, The Herald and Chronicle did not question the pathetic excuse from ZBH chief executive Happison Muchechetere that his organization had decided not to broadcast MDC campaign adverts on the national broadcaster on the basis that four of the more than nine video and audio clips the party had presented contained "inappropriate language and information".

The papers simply reported him objecting to the MDC's audio advert, "Popular", saying its opening statement implied the party's leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won the presidential election while the other one, "The Movement", was criminalised for stating that MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai had won the "popular presidential vote" in the March elections.

On the MDC's video adverts, Muchechetere claimed two of these; "Peace" and "Beginnings" portrayed Tsvangirai as the new state president, which he said did not "portray the correct picture before the pending run-off". He also contended that its "Peace" advert used words like "face of evil and political terrorism, which . . . amounts to hate language" and contravenes Section 5 (3) of the Media Coverage of Elections Regulations of 2008. Nothing was said about why the other adverts could not be aired. Neither did the official dailies compare the opposition party's adverts with the ruling party ones, which bolster Mugabe as president while portraying Tsvangirai hatefully as a sell-out and puppet of the West. Nor did the papers examine ZBC's programme content, which, like the papers themselves, has become a fascist conduit of hate messages against the opposition leader and his party. Similarly, there was no independent examination of the implications of the last-minute changes to election regulations governing the collation of polling station returns and the aggregation of ordinary postal ballots by ward election officers and constituency election officers.

Parties campaigns
The government papers continued with their grossly biased coverage of the parties' campaigns, in open defiance of domestic laws and regional guidelines on election reporting. All eight reports on the subject approvingly reported on ZANU PF election preparations and none on the MDC. Even then, the overkill coverage of the ZANU PF campaigns did not translate into any useful interpretation of the party's programme of action if President Mugabe wins the run-off. For example, there was no effort to examine the implications of the hate language used by the ruling party leadership against Tsvangirai and the MDC, or its threats of war against the electorate if the people voted the opposition into power.

The Herald and Chronicle's front-page coverage of President Mugabe's bluster during a campaign rally at Bulawayo's White City Stadium aptly illustrated this. The papers unquestioningly reported him threatening the electorate against voting for Tsvangirai, whom he said was a "front for British neo-colonial interests", saying doing so would be "tantamount to going back to colonialism so that another war would have to be fought to liberate the country from the shackles of colonisation for the second time". They passively quoted him warning his audience against voting "wrongly" again: "So on June 27 let us go in peace tinoita (to) cast our vote, a historic vote . . . We dare not make a mistake. Don't vote against yourself. Siyekele ukuzibulala. (Let's not kill ourselves)". The papers also reported him threatening violence if the people did make another electoral "mistake": "Hatidi kuti tidzokeredze imwe hondo yokubvisa mabhunu zvakare nokuti matadza kuvhota. (We don't want to return to war just because you have voted wrongly). Ma war veterans' arikuti kwete (The war veterans are saying no)." "People should remember that we are the ones that fought using guns and you are only being given pens. The ballpoint must not defeat the gun. Zvanzi hatidi kuona ballpoint pen ichinzi yakunda. (They say they don't want to see the ballpoint pen win)."

The papers made no attempt to assess how such dire threats undermine the democratic process.

Fig 1 shows the voice pattern in the government dailies.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in the Herald and Chronicle

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