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Daily Media Update 55
Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ)
June 29, 2008

Post-election focus
Highlight of today's government weeklies was The Sunday Mail reporting Robert Mugabe's comments at a funeral in Chikomba admitting he had seen some of the results of the election before they had been announced. The paper reported him telling mourners at his wife's grandmother's funeral that "he was particularly happy the ruling party had reclaimed a large number of votes in Budiriro and Epworth suburbs of Harare which were regarded as opposition strongholds". The paper quoted him saying: "Today I was looking at votes from Budiriro and it has become number one for voting for ZANU PF."

But the paper made no effort to ask the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission why a candidate in the presidential election had been allowed to view the votes before they had been made public. Mugabe's comments spoke volumes about the extent to which both ZEC and the newspaper have become utterly suborned by the ruling party. It also explained why The Sunday Mail and its Bulawayo sister paper, The Sunday News, continued to try and legitimize the one-man election by insisting that Mugabe was still competing against the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who withdrew five days before the election on the grounds that state-sponsored violence against his supporters and the corruption of the voting process had turned the election process into a sham.

The papers also passively reported that the election had been conducted smoothly and peacefully and that the results were expected today. It was extraordinary that they made no effort to compare the promise of such swift results against the five-week delay in the same results for the March 29 elections.

While The Sunday Mail disguised international criticism of the election process as the outpourings of "hysterical" Western media, the government-controlled weeklies also failed to link reports of ZANU PF's sudden willingness to negotiate with the MDC as a result of this regional and international opprobrium.

The government papers ignored incidents of the intimidation of voters and voter apathy, which only emerged in The Standard. The government papers carried a total of 21 reports and The Standard 18.

Election administration
The Sunday Mail and Sunday News continued to try and legitimize the election run-off by presenting it as a race between two candidates. For example, both papers passively quoted Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chief elections officer Utloile Silaigwana saying the commission had "already invited election agents of the two contestants, President Mugabe and opposition MDC leader Mr. Morgan Tsvangirai to witness the process". To reinforce this, the report also stated that, ZEC had started receiving polling statistics from various constituencies across the country and "the final poll result would be made known soon after the collation and verification of all figures coming from the country's 210 constituencies".

The government weeklies also reported that Mugabe had "agreed to engage the opposition MDC in post-election dialogue aimed at resolving differences with the ruling ZANU-PF party" without viewing this as recognition of growing regional and international criticism. Neither did the papers reconcile this offer to Mugabe's earlier position that he would never engage the MDC in dialogue.

The papers also remained silent on the comments of the head of the SADC Election Observer Mission Jose Marcos Barrica, who was quoted saying, "the poll was conducted in a climate of violence, but the result is there; we cannot doubt the result because people voted".

Despite the government papers' news stories indicating a softening stance on the MDC, the papers' editorials continued to present Tsvangirai as a "Western puppet". For example, The Sunday Mail in its comment stated that Zimbabweans had once again declared their sovereignty by going ahead with the presidential run-off poll "which the arm of imperialism had tried to stop because their man Morgan Tsvangirai was heading for a crash." The paper linked the international community's condemnation of the poll to Tsvangirai by saying, "to confirm that he indeed is the running horse (sic) of the West, there has been so much outcry and condemnation from Western capitals as they mourned the collapse of their political project to recolonize Zimbabwe through their proxy". But the paper made no effort to substantiate these delusional allegations.

Meanwhile, The Standard exposed worldwide condemnation of election and intimidation of the electorate in its election stories. For example, the paper stated that the one-man election was due for discussion at the AU summit in Egypt, where leaders are expected for the first time, "to voice their opposition to the manner in which Mugabe went ahead with the poll, after MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai pulled out". Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper was quoted dismissing the poll as, "an ugly perversion of democracy". Other international officials, such as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Prime, Minister Gordon Brown, expressed similar sentiments.
The Standard also reported that Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the presidential run-off had exposed loopholes in the country's electoral laws. For example, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights were quoted saying, "Section 107 referred to the withdrawal of a candidate from any single presidential election, but not for withdrawal of a candidate from a presidential run-off". It pointed out that the matter should have been "referred to a court of law for determination" before any decision to proceed with the run-off.

Political violence
Contrary to government press' claims that there was a "massive voter turnout" in the election, the Standard reported that many polling stations were not busy, although there was widespread intimidation of voters in the rural areas where voters were "marshaled" to polling stations. The paper also gave an eyewitness report which showed that "Operation Red Finger" was a vital pillar in Mugabe's strategy to frighten people into voting. The paper reported that many people in Epworth went to vote because they were afraid they would be beaten if they could not show the pink ink that would prove they had voted, contrary to The Sunday Mail's claims that the red ink-stained finger symbolized "every patriotic Zimbabwean's" desire to show the world that they had helped shape the destiny of the country.

The Standard provided further evidence to show that the run-off campaign had been characterized by extreme intimidation when it reported that a Major General Engelbert Rugeje had told thousands of people at a rally at Mucheke Stadium on Wednesday that, "there would be war in both rural and urban areas if people voted for the Movement for Democratic Change". It fitted well with The Sunday Mail's report of Mugabe telling mourners at the funeral: "You knew you did not want to fight the opposition using your fist but wanted to vote for your party, which is ZANU PF . . . "

Fig1: Voice distribution in The Sunday Mail and Sunday News

Fig 2: Voice distribution in The Standard

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