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Weekly Media Update 2010-29
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday July 16th - Sunday August 1st 2010
August 06, 2010

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The week's top stories

Tributes to President Mugabe's sister and national heroine, Sabina, following her death on July 29, and President Mugabe's renewed attacks on the West for allegedly interfering in Zimbabwe's affairs during a graveside speech at her burial, made headlines in the government-controlled media.

However, there was very little examination in these media on the friction in the inclusive government caused by the unilateral conferment of national hero status to Sabina by the ZANU PF arm of government. Neither did they assess the implications of Mugabe's tirade against the West, which prompted a walkout by some of the invited Western diplomats, in protest. These issues were only tackled more holistically in the private media.

The seemingly endless problems in the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (Copac)'s outreach consultative programme and indicators of poor service provision by the country's parastatals and municipalities also remained under spotlight in both media (See Fig 1).

State media suppresses friction over Sabina's heroine Status

The government media flooded their audiences with eulogies of Sabina's contribution to the liberation of Zimbabwe from colonial rule but paid no attention to the controversial manner in which ZANU PF unilaterally declared her a national heroine. Only the private media reported this. They pointed out how the development had further worsened relations between ZANU PF and its MDC coalition partners so soon after the two MDC formations recently protested against President Mugabe's unilateral reshuffling of ambassadors and the continued broadcasts of ZANU PF propaganda songs on the national broadcaster, ZBC, despite an alleged Cabinet directive.

The Standard (1/8) quoted MDC-M president Arthur Mutambara and MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa describing ZANU PF's unilateral conferment of hero status to Sabina as a sign of disrespect of its coalition partners and a violation of the spirit of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

It quoted Chamisa: "There was no consultation. It was a ZANU PF affair. This (lack of consultation) is an area of contention, as a party we want it to have national appeal and this will give it credibility".

The private media questioned too the criteria used and ZANU PF's urgency in declaring Sabina a national heroine while NewsDay & Daily News (1 & 2/8) interpreted Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's absence from Sabina's burial, preferring to address an MDC-T rally in Bulawayo instead, as a "boycott". Besides quoting "a highly placed" MDC-T official alleging that the move was a protest against ZANU PF's unilateralism, NewsDay construed the alleged boycott as an indication that the party did not "recognize" the hero status bestowed on Sabina.

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