Back to Index

This article participates on the following special index pages:

Daily Media Update 50
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
June 24, 2008

Election focus
Today, the government dailies, The Herald and Chronicle (24/6), continued to present preparations for Friday's run-off between President Mugabe and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai as progressing smoothly despite the MDC's announcement that it had pulled out of the election.

They made no attempt to assess the implications of the MDC's decision on Zimbabwe's political and electoral crisis and largely ignored growing regional and international condemnation of the conditions prevailing in the country, which are widely considered to be unsuitable for a democratic election.

This was reflected in the 19 reports that the papers carried on election related matters.Three of these were on poll administration, four on political violence and 12 on the parties' campaigns.

Poll administration
All three stories the government dailies published on the country's electoral management glossed over the process; passively recording the authorities saying they were capable of conducting a free and fair election in two days' time. There was no assessment of their ability to manage the poll in compliance with domestic laws and regional guidelines governing the holding of democratic elections. Neither did they provide any informed analysis on how the poll would be held as insisted by authorities despite the MDC's withdrawal. The Herald and Chronicle, for example, attempted to undermine the MDC's decision by quoting the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson George Chiweshe telling a Press conference that his commission had not yet received any official communication from Tsvangirai as required by the country's electoral laws.

Chiweshe added that ZEC was "ready" for the run-off and three House of Assembly by-elections as exemplified by the deployment of polling officers and the transportation of election material to the districts. The papers reported Chiweshe as reluctant to make clear the implications of Tsvangirai's boycott. He simply said it was "premature" for him to "disclose what the law says in the event that one of the candidates withdraws from an election". No comment was sought from the MDC (Tsvangirai).

The dailies did not independently investigate concerns by regional election observers over the controversial conduct of postal balloting. For example, they drowned the observers' remarks that the armed forces had been "forced to vote for a particular candidate" by their bosses with Chiweshe's response that: "No names have been mentioned. What we have are general allegations that this has happened . . . " However, the papers did not reconcile Chiweshe's denial with an admission by another ZEC official Lovemore Sekeramayi that "it was possible" under the postal ballot system "to find out which candidate one had voted for". Similarly, they simply cited the ZEC chairman defending the exclusion of observers from witnessing the postal voting process on the grounds that the law "did not provide for their presence" without viewing this as a flaw in the country's electoral process. Neither was there a convincing justification on why there were about 64 000 postal ballot applications compared to around 8 000 during the March 29 harmonized polls. Instead, the papers passively quoted Sekeramayi saying the increase "arose from the fact that members of the army had also submitted returns unlike in March when only the police officers applied for this facility". However, the dailies saw nothing strange about this massive increase.

The Herald and Chronicle also failed to take ZEC to task over its failure to ensure that the contestants had equitable access to the government-controlled media during elections, and that these media provide fair, balanced and accurate news to the candidates. They downplayed the issue, quoting ZEC vice-chairperson and media committee chairperson, Joyce Kazembe, simply saying she "had not received any formal complaint from the MDC-T". Kazembe added that she had "gathered information that MDC-T had not submitted its campaign advertisements until last week when the opposition was advised by ZBC that some of its adverts contained inaccurate information". The papers did not challenge her to clearly explain how and why some of the adverts were inappropriate, or why ZBC did not broadcast the other adverts.

Campaigns
The government papers carried 12 reports on party campaigns. Six of them were positive reports on ZANU PF campaign activities, while the remainder viciously attacked the MDC and its leader, portraying them as agents of Western imperialism. The Herald and Chronicle, for example, gave front-page status to President Mugabe's rallies in Manicaland Province where he repeatedly urged Zimbabweans to vote for him to "safeguard the country's sovereignty . . . since the MDC was a creation of the West". The dailies passively recorded him accusing humanitarian organizations of campaigning for the MDC using food aid, and industry for "pushing the regime change agenda by deliberately increasing prices . . . " Further, Mugabe claimed: "Mabusiness ndeemaBritish, havadi kuti zvinhu zvinake. Tichaatora after maelections" [These businesses are British owned. They do not want to see the living standards of our people improving. We will seize them after the elections]. No evidence was provided to support this alleged conspiracy or the abuse of food aid.

In another report, The Herald and Chronicle misreported news that Tsvangirai had sought refuge at the Dutch Embassy in Harare fearing for his life. Instead of investigating the validity of Tsvangirai's fears, the papers attempted to discredit his action, reporting the matter from the police's perspective. They approvingly recorded police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri saying the move was "a desperate attempt to besmirch Friday's run-off". The papers did not view Chihuri's comment as grossly partisan and inappropriate for civil servant. Instead, they passively cited him describing Tsvangirai's action as "a dirty political antic to stir international anger" and "further brutalize the image of the country". The Herald and Chronicle failed to reconcile Chihuri's claims that Tsvangirai's life was not in danger with previous police reasons justifying the banning of his rallies on security grounds.

Political violence
The government published four reports on violence, recording no incidents. These quoted authorities either exclusively blaming the MDC for the violence, or presenting the issue as lie. For example, despite clear evidence of a government-sponsored campaign of violence against opposition supporters, The Herald and Chronicle passively quoted Mugabe telling ZANU PF supporters in Chipinge that Britain and America were "lying" about Zimbabwe, saying "a lot of people are dying" to "try and build an atmosphere to justify their intervention". The papers quoted other ZANU PF officials exonerating themselves and their party from the violence without carrying out any independent investigation.

The Herald and Chronicle maintained their role as the mouthpieces of official propaganda by passively reporting Chihuri "dismissing the opposition and its Western handlers' claims of violence against its supporters". Neither did they view as part of government's clampdown on the MDC police's raid on the party's offices in Harare allegedly to "relocate" its supporters who were living there after fleeing from violence in rural areas. Instead, they quoted a government official, Sydney Mhishi, justifying the raid saying the building was no longer conducive for business owing to unhygienic conditions. The official dailies also attempted to downplay the impact of the violence on this Friday's uncertain vote, passively quoting Chiweshe saying: "I do not believe that the level of violence in the county is such that a credible election cannot be held".

Fig 1 shows the sourcing patterns in the government-controlled dailies.

Fig 1: Voice distribution in The Herald and Chronicle

Visit the MMPZ fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP