Harare | Thursday
THE editor-in-chief of Zimbabwe’s only private daily newspaper, The Daily News, and the former head of the paper’s parent company, were on Thursday picked by Harare police for questioning, the editor and other sources said.
The paper has been fiercely critical of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s government.
Geoff Nyarota and Wilf Mbanga, the founding CEO of the Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe (ANZ), were picked up from their homes early on Thursday by plain clothes police.
Contacted on his mobile phone, Nyarota confirmed he had been picked up and was in the middle of being questioned at the police criminal investigations office, but would not give details.
It could not be immediately established what charges they faced, but a state-run daily, the Herald this week reported that the ANZ flouted investment and exchange control regulations.
ANZ has denied the allegations as “malicious falsehood by those bent on undermining the operations or integrity of ANZ”.
Police have said they are investigating the circumstances under which the ANZ was awarded an operating licence.
The mass circulation Daily News, the country’s sole independent daily paper, was launched in March 1999 and has frequently come under fire.
Its printing press was destroyed by a bomb blast in January and its offices were rocked by a blast in April last year.
Its editors and reporters have been arrested on various charges, and a plot to kill Nyarota failed last year after the would-be assassin lost his nerve.
The paper, along with independent weeklies in Zimbabwe, has come under repeated threats from Mugabe’s backers since the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won nearly half the country’s parliamentary seats in watershed elections in June last year. In other developments in the beleaguered nation, an opinion poll has revealed that most voters favour opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai over Mugabe ahead of presidential elections next year.
The survey by the independent Target Research agency found 52,9% of those questioned saying they would vote for Tsvangirai, against 47,1% for Mugabe, who faces the biggest challenge of his 21-year rule.
But 20% of the polled voters remained undecided, saying their choice would be influenced by the country’s economic situation.
The poll, commissioned by the weekly Financial Gazette, was conducted in August and September among a nationally representative population of 3 013 voters.
The most important issue for the Zimbabwean voter is the deepening economic crisis characterised by inflation above 80%, unemployment of more than 60% and critical shortages of foreign exchange.
Most of the respondents who expressed their intention to vote for Tsvangirai were from the Harare area and districts of western Matabeleland North and South provinces.
The poll showed that Mugabe still enjoys support in his traditional rural strongholds of Mashonaland and Masvingo provinces.
Analysts say Mugabe, who came to power in 1980 on a wave of popular support after leading a guerrilla war against white-minority rule, has used the land reform card to try to step up his support in the rural countryside.
Mugabe says the controversial land reforms to take land from a small population of whites, who own some 70% of prime farmland, and give it to millions of landless blacks — is meant to correct colonial imbalances. Mugabe faces possibly the greatest challenge to his rule in the race against Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, and opposition figures have openly worried he will use intimidation to stay in power.
The Financial Gazette said researchers who conducted the recent were harassed by pro-government supporters, officials and local leaders during their field work.
In several cases, interviewers were assaulted, arrested by police and some had their cash and completed questionnaires confiscated by pro-government youths on suspicion they were members of the opposition, according to the weekly. – AFP, Sapa
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