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Weekly Media Review 2011-46
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday November 14th - Sunday November 20th 2011
November 25, 2011

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ZANU PF steps up campaign

President Mugabe's ZANU PF party appears to have stepped up its elections campaign activities by joining the MDC-T in holding party promotional events throughout the country to woo the electorate ahead of potential national elections next year.

Up until now, ZANU PF's campaign activities had been largely limited to the use of music, where songs glorifying President Mugabe and his party's ideology are frequently and prominently played across all television and radio stations of the state broadcaster, ZBC (see section on ZANU PF abuses ZBC). Only Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC had appeared the most visible party on the ground, reportedly holding numerous rallies around the country over the past six months.

ZANU PF's on-the-ground campaign activities coincided with the party's preparations for its national conference, to be held in early December, to formally choose its presidential candidate for national elections.

These campaign activities formed most (51) of the 59 stories the government media carried on the activities of Zimbabwe's major political parties this week. The remaining eight were on the MDC-T. The smaller MDC faction, led by Welshman Ncube was ignored.

All the reports on ZANU PF portrayed Mugabe as the most popular leader in Zimbabwe as evidenced by his endorsement by the party's structures and provinces (ZBC, 14, 16, 17 & 18/11, 8pm). These reports also presented ZANU PF as sensitive to the needs of Zimbabweans, as illustrated by its provision of farming inputs to disadvantaged farmers and its black economic empowerment drive (ZBC, 22/11, 8pm). Notably, the public media passively reported on this blur between government and ZANU PF party initiatives, presenting some of the coalition government's empowerment activities such as the black empowerment drive as an exclusively ZANU PF exercise.

The government media's coverage of the MDC-T was largely negative. This was typified by their speculative reports depicting Tsvangirai, among others, as a renegade who had allegedly visited Morocco to mobilize Western funding to effect "illegal" regime change, as well as presenting his party as in the process of setting up "reaction teams" to unleash violence that would create the excuse for Western military intervention (The Sunday Mail, The Herald and Chronicle, 20 & 21/11).

The private media carried 32 stories on the parties' activities: Thirteen on ZANU PF, MDC-T 15, and the remaining four on the smaller MDC faction. Of the private media's stories on ZANU PF activities, six were negative, while nine were neutral. MDC-T was given neutral coverage in five stories and portrayed positively in 10 stories. Three of the stories on the MDC-N were negative, while the remaining one was neutral.

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