On the face of it, the new broadcasting regulations issued last month in Zimbabwe were groundbreaking. For the first time in the history of Zimbabwean elections, the opposition would be legally allocated time on state-owned radio and television in the run-up to a parliamentary poll, scheduled for March 31.
Some welcomed this as a step towards leveling the country’s uneven electoral playing field: the previous parliamentary poll, in 2000, and presidential elections in 2002 were marred by widespread violence, most of it directed against the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).
Zimbabwe’s four radio stations and single television station, which have a monopoly on broadcasting, also served up a diet of propaganda for the ruling Zanu-PF party during the two campaigns — and vilified the opposition.
These stations are now obliged to accept campaign advertisements from opposition parties and candidates. The law also requires broadcasters to allocate equal time to all parties in which they can discuss their campaigns.
However, critics of the broadcasting amendments claim they are simply cosmetic ‒ an attempt to give the poll a veneer of legitimacy. To begin with, says the MDC, the advertising rates — prescribed by law — have made radio and television adverts unaffordable.
”The rates are too high, and the broadcasters demand payment up front from us,” notes party spokesman Paul Themba Nyathi. For its part, the ruling party has flooded radio and television stations with adverts.
Rindai Chipfunda of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), complains that when opposition representatives are given the chance of presenting their party’s views about electoral issues on air, they are sometimes hectored by journalists who for years have acted as ruling party publicists.
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, an NGO based in the capital, Harare, also points out that that sustained bias against the opposition in other news programmes and bulletins belies any claim that the state broadcaster is becoming truly neutral in its treatment of the campaign.
In addition, overall coverage remains weighted in Zanu-PF’s favour.
”The news is still biased in favour of the ruling party. That’s where they publicize ruling party campaign activities — and yet they claim they are not obliged to cover the activities of the opposition,” says Nhlanhla Ngwenya, a spokesman for the monitoring project, which surveys the output of radio and television stations and the print media in an effort to improve reporting standards in Zimbabwe.
As an example of how state media undermine the opposition, Ngwenya cites the coverage given to the launch of Zanu-PF’s election campaign and manifesto last month. The four-hour proceedings were carried live on television, with presenters wearing Zanu-PF T-shirts. The campaign launch of the MDC rated no more than a two-minute news item.
In the 2000 and 2002 elections, the opposition was given a voice by certain newspapers, notably Zimbabwe’s sole privately-owned daily, the Daily News. (The state-controlled Herald daily covers opposition activities in much the same way as radio and television stations do.)
The past few years, however, have seen government enact repressive legislation that made it increasingly difficult for independent journalists — already the victims of harassment by government and its supporters — to operate.
The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act, passed in March 2002, obliges journalists and media houses to obtain accreditation from a state-appointed Media and Information Commission (MIC), or face imprisonment of up to two years. To date, four publications have been banned by the MIC — including the Daily News.
The last remaining foreign correspondent in Zimbabwe, Andrew Meldrum of Britain’s Guardian newspaper, was expelled from the country in 2003.
In addition, the small pool of local writers who work for foreign media was depleted still further last month, when Angus Shaw of the Associated Press, Jan Raath — a freelancer for the Times of London — and Bloomberg News correspondent Brian Latham fled the country.
The three journalists had feared for their safety after being questioned by police over allegations of spying, the status of their MIC accreditation — and the transmission of information considered prejudicial to Zimbabwe.
Even if the print media in Zimbabwe were allowed to operate unhindered, Chipfunda has doubts about whether they could balance the scales of election coverage in Zimbabwe. ”Urban voters make up only 30 percent of the electorate and the rural populace relies on the radio for information. So, they should benefit from the radio programmes,” she says.
Themba Nyathi believes that efforts to make the campaign coverage on state media appear more representative stem from government’s desire to persuade the international community that it is complying with electoral guidelines set up by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) last year.
Amongst other things, the guidelines stipulate the need for ”Equal opportunity for all political parties to access the state media”.
But Harare resident John Sibindi questions whether this brief amount of access could really help opposition groups combat years of disparagement by Zanu-PF.
”People have been bombarded with lies for so long that for some a few adverts over a few weeks won’t really change their perception of the parties as enemies of the people of Zimbabwe,” he says. — IPS