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Election Watch Issue 15 - 2013
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
March 10, 2013
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Media
fails to resolve ‘mystery’ of Maisiri’s death
The death of 12-year
old Christpowers Maisiri on February 23rd in a suspected case of
political violence in Headlands reignited debate in the media about
Zimbabwe’s ability to hold free and fair elections later this
year. It also triggered a war of words between Prime Minister Morgan
Tsvangirai’s MDC and ZANU PF about whether the incident was
politically motivated; with both parties claiming that the Maisiri
family belonged to them (Daily News,
25/2).
The private media, particularly
the Daily News (25/2), rushed to conclude that ZANU PF was responsible,
mostly on the strength of accounts by the MDC-T and the Maisiri
family.
On the other
hand, ZBC (26/2, 8pm) and The Herald (27 & 28/2) reported Maisiri’s
death after three days, in the context of President Mugabe expressing
concern over the boy’s death
but dismissing accusations that his party was responsible, saying
they were “baseless, offensive and malicious”. These
media also gave prominence to “preliminary police investigations”
“ruling out foul play” (The Herald, 28/2 and ZBC, 28/2,
8pm). Subsequently, none of the media independently investigated
what exactly transpired.
The Herald (27/2) reported
Mugabe’s statement, delivered through his spokesman George
Charamba, expressing concern over the “emergence of violence
is some parts of the country” and “ordering” the
police to “arrest all perpetrators of political violence regardless
of their social standing”.
The official daily appeared
to trivialize the prevalence and implications of the current wave
of political violence and harassment by describing these as “reports
of isolated cases of political skirmishes” in Mashonaland
West and Headlands.
The Daily News (25/2)
was the first to report a bizarre claim by ZANU PF’s secretary
for administration, Didymus Mutasa, saying that it was “impossible”
for his party’s activists to kill Christpowers, because his
father was a ZANU PF supporter (Daily News, 25/2). “Yes, I
know Maisiri. But there’s no way he can contest against me
when he is a member of my party. Yes, he comes from Chief Makoni’s
area…but he is not an MDC supporter.”
The paper had contacted
Mutasa as the current MP for the district after Maisiri and the
MDC-T had accused ZANU PF of being linked to Christpowers’
death. But the daily also reported the Maisiri family claiming they
had been the victim of several previous incidents of political violence,
which they blamed on ZANU PF.
Two days later, The Herald
(27/2) appeared to reinforce Mutasa’s claims by quoting ZANU
PF spokesman Rugare Gumbo saying his party could not have attacked
the Maisiri family because of “the existence of a cordial
relationship” between the two. Gumbo said his party believed
the incident, like others before it, “was staged to try to
put Zimbabwe on the international spotlight with a view to discrediting
what is now an imminent and inevitable ZANU PF victory in the coming
elections”.
Earlier, The Herald (26/2)
downplayed an incident of ZANU PF intra-party violence in Hurungwe
West and failed to disclose the political affiliation of two senior
ZANU PF officials involved. The daily simply reported “businessman”
Temba Mliswa as having been arrested “following skirmishes”
where Hurungwe East legislator Sarah Mahoka “was injured in
an attack by youths, while trying to address a meeting” at
Zimoja Business Centre.
In another case, The
Herald (28/2) reported a court appearance of five MDCT youths from
Chitungwiza who allegedly “tore posters” of Mugabe and
late nationalist Solomon Mujuru before “beating up”
ZANU PF youths “in politically-inspired violence”. The
Herald did not explain why the MDC-T activists were only charged
with “disorderly conduct” when the paper had claimed
they assaulted ZANU PF supporters.
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