OWN CORRESPONDENTS, Harare | Thursday
ZIMBABWEAN President Robert Mugabe’s government has forced through parliament a controversial bill consolidating its broadcasting monopoly ahead of presidential elections early next year.
Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party used its parliamentary majority to pass the Broadcasting Services (2001) Bill, despite strong objections from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
The new broadcast law makes already restrictive regulations permanent law, while the fundraising bill will ban foreign funding of political parties – a favorite government criticism of the opposition.
The fact that debate on the bills raged until almost 3:00 am on Wednesday was something of a novelty in Zimbabwe.
Until the upstart Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won nearly half the elected seats in last June’s parliamentary elections, parliament was dominated by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and rubber-stamped almost anything he proposed.
The ruling party voted 72 to the opposition’s 43 to pass the broadcasting bill, which both the MDC and a three-member parliamentary legal committee, including two senior Zanu-PF officials, had condemned as unconstitutional.
But Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa twice succeeded in tossing out their findings, and ZANU-PF parliamentarians blocked any amendments to the government’s draft of the bills.
Media experts here have decried the broadcast bill as overly restrictive, saying it makes it almost impossible for new stations to set up operations.
The bill, which will become law once Mugabe signs it, forbids political parties from running broadcasting stations and stipulates that licensed broadcasters should give the government one hour a week to air its policies.
Critics say Zanu-PF already has tight control over the country’s sole current broadcaster, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), and that it has set out stringent rules to prevent broadcasters from criticising the government before the presidential vote due in early 2002.
Information Minister Jonathan Moyo told parliament the bill ”puts freedom of expression as a higher ideal because it comes before profits”.
The bill also provides for the setting up of a Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe to issue licences, but gives the information minister powers to override its decisions.
It prohibits foreigners and non-residents of Zimbabwe from owning shares in broadcasting companies and limits individuals to a maximum of 10 percent in station ownership.
The bill replaces controversial temporary regulations the government put in place last October that gave the information minister sole power to issue broadcasting licences. – AFP/Reuters