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Weekly Media Review 2011-19
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday May 9th - Sunday May 15th 2011
May 20, 2011
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ZANU
PF defies poll roadmap
All media recorded
the ZANU PF politburo's decision to back the party's
congress resolution for national elections to be held this year
in defiance of counsel from both the MDC negotiators to the Global
Political Agreement (GPA) and SADC's South African facilitation
team.
The official
media widely reported on this development. ZBC alone publicised
ZANU PF reiterating its calls for early elections in 13 stories.
The government-controlled
media passively reported a ZANU PF politburo meeting as having resolved
to defy the SADC-facilitated efforts to hammer out a roadmap that
will entail the holding of credible elections next year and stick
by its congress resolutions to hold them this year, quoting party
spokesman Rugare Gumbo.
ZTV (10/5,
6pm and 8pm) quoted Gumbo: "The party position is very clear,
I don't know how many times I should repeat this. Elections
are on this year and reforms are not fundamental if people want
elections."
The people who
allegedly wanted the polls were not defined.
Neither did
the official media analyse the practicability of ZANU PF's
position, given the financial, political and other logistical problems
facing the transitional government. Nor were they attentive to the
potentially regressive effects of ZANU PF's early election
demands on SADC's efforts to help the country's reconstruction
exercise.
The government-controlled
media also reported Gumbo describing reservations expressed by ZANU
PF's chief negotiator, Patrick Chinamasa on the country's
capacity to hold elections this year as "now water under the
bridge", saying the party and Chinamasa had since "realigned"
their positions (ZTV, 11/5, 8pm and The Herald & Chronicle,
12/5).
The Sunday Mail
(15/5) buried Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono's opinion
that early elections could severely affect Zimbabwe's economy
in an interview with the paper over a wide range of issues.But the
paper gave prominence to an alleged "plot" by the US
and Britain to block the holding of elections this year as they
feared the MDC-T "would lose dismally" in the polls
as the party" has no cohesive or appealing policy that can
be a rallying point for the voters".
No convincing
evidence of this was given.
The private
media were adamant that Zimbabwe was not yet ready for elections,
saying holding them this year was likely to plunge the country into
a June 2008 electoral crisis (SW Radio Africa, The Zimbabwean and
NewsDay, 10, 12 & 16/5).
They quoted
political commentators arguing that uncertainties over President
Mugabe's poor health and advanced age, and his party's
succession crisis had precipitated ZANU PF's demands for an
early election (Daily News, 13/5).
These media
also viewed contradictory remarks within ZANU PF as evidence of
deep-seated divisions within the party over how to proceed, and
argued that the party's demands could be counter-productive
(SW Radio Africa, The Zimbabwean NewsDay and The Daily News, 10,
12 & 16/5).
The Daily News quoted an unnamed diplomat: "The
insistence on going it alone . . . appears blissfully oblivious
to the fact that it is solely through the SADC sponsored GPA framework
that President Mugabe has the legitimacy to be called head of state.
If it falls away (GPA), then there is neither a president nor a
prime minister that would be recognized by the region."
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