Zimbabwe: Election fatigue

The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe

Weekly Media Update 2004-18

Monday May 3rd - Sunday May 9th 2004

CONTENTS

1. GENERAL COMMENT

2. SCHOOLS CLOSURE
3. INDICATORS OF AN AILING ECONOMY

1. General Comment

ELECTION reporting fatigue appeared to be taking its toll on the media as was reflected by the way they covered the run-up to the Lupane by-election scheduled for this weekend (May 15th and 16th).

While the private media generally have reported political violence and manipulation of the electorate in recent weeks, there were virtually no stories updating their audiences of the situation in the final week leading to the election, and precious little information about the electoral process itself. For example, none of the media fully examined the state of the voters’ roll, which the opposition has previously accused government agencies of tampering with to ensure a ruling party victory, or other related electoral mechanics, such as logistics on the number and nature of polling stations, or the composition and number of election officials, including monitors and observers, all crucial elements in the exercise of democracy.

Rather, the government media, as epitomized by The Sunday News (9/5), seemed pre-occupied with campaigning exclusively for the ruling party in its two articles, Zanu-PF vows to bury MDC in Lupane and, A choice between barren politics of protest and fruitful politics of progress.

On the other hand, the private media did not carry any specific stories on the Lupane by-election, focusing instead on broader interpretative reports exposing ZANU PF’s methodical but unorthodox plans to tilt the outcome of next year’s parliamentary elections in its favour. For example, the Zimbabwe Independent (7/5) quoted the MDC alleging that the ruling party wanted to eject food aid agencies from the country on the pretext that the nation has enough food, so it could “use total control over relief food distribution as a key campaign tool in the next year’s parliamentary election”.

The MDC’s shadow agriculture minister, Renson Gasela, is reported alleging that ZANU PF had stocked maize for the purpose.

The Standard (9/5) also viewed government’s recent hefty salary awards to chiefs as part of the ruling party’s attempts to buy their support as happened during the March Gutu North by-election.

Besides the vote-buying claims however, The Zimbabwe Independent also warned that ZANU PF was likely to intensify its violent campaign to subdue the opposition during the parliamentary election due in 2005, but which the paper suggested could be held as early as October this year. It cited the recent retribution exercise conducted by ZANU PF supporters against the MDC supporters in Chiendambuya, Manicaland, as an example. Opposition supporters were severely assaulted for attending a rally addressed by MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

Despite such adversity an optimistic MDC secretary-general, Welshman Ncube, told The Financial Gazette (6/5) that he expected the ruling party would concede to his party’s demands to overhaul the flawed electoral laws and level the playing field ahead of the parliamentary poll.

The paper did not however question the source of his confidence.

2. Schools closure

THE docile manner in which the government-controlled media, particularly ZBC, covered the government’s use of the police to enforce its closure of private schools it accused of massively hiking school fees further underscored the extent to which the authorities have transformed these media into unquestioning conduits of racial bigotry.

The government broadcaster allowed Education Minister Aeneas Chigwedere to claim – without substantiation – that private schools were “racist” and were therefore increasing fees to discriminate against black people.

The broadcaster’s complicity in this regard was more pronounced in the way it regurgitated these claims without subjecting them to any analysis or balancing them with comments from the affected parents and the school authorities on the reasons behind the increased fees.

Notably, Zimpapers’ publications, which usually adopt a similar stance to ZBC on topical issues, initially steered clear of Chigwedere’s unproven racial claims and preferred to carry factual, fair and relatively balanced event reports on the matter. Thus, unlike their electronic counterpart, the papers also quoted the affected parents’ condemnation of the closures. However, by the end of the week their “independent” stance was brought into line following more racist remarks made by Chigwedere on ZTV’s Face the Nation programme. Opinion pieces in the Chronicle (8/5), the Sunday News and The Sunday Mail (9/5) unquestioningly echoed Chigwedere’s allegations and called for tougher action against the schools.

Like ZBC, the government papers did not fully discuss the legality of the government action.

The private media however, categorically condemned the schools’ closure as illegal since the Education Act, which the authorities and the media they control used to justify the shutdowns, has no provision for this action.

As news of government’s closure of the 45 private schools emerged in The Herald (4/5), ZTV (4/5, 6pm) tried to justify the move saying it was meant to “preserve the gains made by government in the education sector since independence”. The station and Power FM (4/5, 8pm) then quoted Chigwedere contriving a racial factor to defend the illegal shutdown. Citing St George’s College and Peterhouse as examples, Chigwedere described the private schools as “racist schools” which wanted “to throw the black majority out of education” and added that, “government won’t hesitate to deal with this racist attitude”.

To give the government action a seal of public approval, ZTV (4/5, 8pm) then conducted street interviews with selected members of the public and claimed that most parents had condemned the fee hikes because they felt the move was aimed at discriminating against “the black majority and move back to the era when some schools were meant for whites only.” No comment was sought from the schools’ authorities. Neither did the broadcaster try to relate the fee increases to the runaway cost of living. Instead, it quoted Chigwedere downplaying this by allowing him to claim that the “Prices of most goods are going down.”

But Studio 7 (5/5) and The Standard (9/5) disputed this. The Standard noted that school fees, like everything else in Zimbabwe, had risen because of “the abnormal economic environment” caused by “Zanu PF’s skewed policies,” while Studio 7 quoted University of Zimbabwe educationist Fred Zindi saying the fees hikes were made
“to counter inflation” and allow the schools to continue to offer high quality education.
Zindi dismissed Chigwedere’s claims that private schools were racist saying Zimbabwe’s white population is “very small and the majority of the pupils in those schools are black…” Though most of these schools are run by whites, he added, “it is not the (white) principals who make these increases but the PTAs (Parents and Teachers Associations)…”
Teachers who were also quoted on the same bulletin agreed, saying, “more than 70% of their students are black”.

Some corroboration of these claims appeared in The Herald (6/5). The paper quoted parents as having told Chigwedere that 80 percent of children enrolled at private schools were blacks thereby “significantly exceeding” government’s stipulated quota of 60 percent. The paper also deviated from its usual passivity when reporting government policies by quoting parents condemning the closure. The authorities should “raise standards at its own schools” rather than “focusing on closing private schools”, said one parent. Similar views appeared in The Herald (5/5) and even The Sunday Mail.

But the public broadcaster refused to exercise even this minimal professional standard. Rather, it meekly provided Chigwedere (ZTV’s Face the Nation (6/5, 9.30pm) with an unbridled platform to divert public attention from the real issues bedeviling the education sector in Zimbabwe by allowing him to dabble in racial and nationalist rhetoric.

Said Chigwedere, fully exposing the source of deep-seated racial hatred that has characterized Zimbabwean politics for the past four years: “These schools… are the factories that manufacture the Rhodesians. At any rate, look at their history; they were established by the Rhodesian regime to produce future Rhodesian leaders and they have remained Rhodesian to this day. And the ownership is foreign, it is British. The very war that we are fighting against Britain is the very war we are fighting against these schools… this is another front of the racist war that we are fighting”.

Instead of subjecting these absurd allegations to analysis, the Chronicle (8/5), Sunday News and The Sunday Mail rehashed and approved such insidious racism. For example, the Chronicle’s Busybody column, notable for its crude attacks against perceived government opponents, celebrated government’s crackdown on the schools, describing them as an “extension of apartheid”. The column claimed that “whites” established “whites only” schools after realizing “that they could not practice racism in independent Zimbabwe”, adding that it “liked” Chigwedere’s comments.

The Sunday News’s Goings-On column also welcomed the closure saying “little Rhodesians” were “unacceptable” while The Sunday Mail’s Tafataona Mahoso likened government’s action to the “Third Chimurenga”, which would prevent private schools from producing “another bunch of Rhodies in African skin”.

These papers however, conveniently ignored the fact that not all the closed private schools are white-owned, as illustrated by Tynwald Primary School, owned by retired army commander, Vitalis Zvinavashe.

Eventually however, the schools’ response to their closure obliged the media to reveal the illegal nature of government’s action. ZTV (6/5, 8pm), The Herald and the Zimbabwe Independent (7/5) reported that the High Court, with the consent of the State, had ordered the reopening of Hartmann House Preparatory School, which had filed an urgent application against the government’s action.

The Herald and the Zimbabwe Independent also revealed that other private schools in Masvingo and Bulawayo had also filed court applications seeking to nullify the closure.

The Independent quoted the schools’ lawyer, Richard Majwabu-Moyo, saying, “There is no provision in the Education Act that gives the Minister of Education powers to shut down schools for raising fees and what he has done is illegal.”

The Standard and Studio 7 (6/5) quoted other legal experts making similar observations.

Despite this, ZBC (6/5, 8pm), The Herald and the Zimbabwe Independent (7/5) still reported the police as having arrested some of the school headmasters accused of unilaterally hiking fees.

Unlike the Independent however, The Herald did not name some of the arrested headmasters or their schools. Rather, it only revealed that those arrested in Marondera had paid deposit fines after signing admission of guilt forms and quoted police spokesman Andrew Phiri saying the police “were enforcing the laws that exist and we will continue to do so until everyone complies…”

The paper did not question this falsehood.

Studio 7 (6/5), however, quoted Harare lawyer Simon Ziva saying there are no legal provisions for such arrests as private school staffers “do no fall under the essential category in terms of the Public Service Act.”

But the authorities’ disdain for the law and their continued abuse of office to formulate self-serving legislation without regard to other people’s freedoms was clearly demonstrated by Chigwedere’s remarks on ZTV’s Face The Nation. Chigwedere pointed out that government would circumvent the law by amending the Education Act so as to legitimize its demands on private schools. Citing the Hartmann court victory, he said private schools might “win (court cases) because they have exploited a loophole somewhere. In two, three weeks, we will have plugged the hole. They discover another one and exploit it, six months thereafter, we plug the hole… there is no way they can win…”

3. Indicators of an ailing economy

BARELY three weeks after the government media hailed the Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono’s monetary policy review statement as the tonic for the country’s economic ills, symptoms of economic recession littered media space in the week. Even the government Press, which so assiduously assures the public of the country’s economic recovery, gave the game away when they increased their cover prices, attributing the hikes to increased production costs including newsprint.

The week also witnessed an increase in the price of a loaf of bread from about $2,000 to $2,900, The Herald (5/5), Radio Zimbabwe (5/5, 1pm), Power FM (5/5, 1pm), and The Manica Post (7/5). In their reports, these media quoted bakers justifying the bread price hike by citing the increase in the price of flour from $2,5 million to $3,4 million dollars a tonne. Other factors such as increases in wages, electricity, transport and spare parts were also cited.

However, the government media merely presented these problems as peculiar to the baking industry and not representative of the broader economic environment.

The Sunday Mail claimed that price increases were not justified because of the “decline in the country’s inflation rate and the cheap funds being made available to the manufacturers through the Reserve Bank’s Productive Sector Facility”.

The paper then tried to give the impression that government policies have resulted in phenomenal growth in the manufacturing sector. It quoted unnamed “retailers” as saying “manufacturers who increase prices unreasonably risk going out of business as there is increased competition” as “indigenous players are now venturing into manufacturing, with some of them even running promotions to outdo established manufacturers”.

The same article quoted the Consumer Council of Zimbabwe (CCZ) calling on government to reintroduce food subsidies on basic commodities “to make them affordable”. The implications of this were studiously avoided. In fact, the failure by the government media to examine the adverse effects of subsidies on the economy manifested itself in the manner they reported the increase in the producer price of maize.

ZBC (4/5, 8pm), The Herald and the Chronicle (5/5) announced that the government-run Grain Marketing Board would now buy a tonne of maize from farmers for $750,000 up from last year’s $300,000 a tonne while maintaining its selling price to millers at $400,000 a tonne and to drought-stricken areas at $9,000 a tonne.

However, none of them examined how this economically senseless decision would affect the fiscus. Neither did they examine the inflationary effects of offering resettled farmers free transport to ferry their produce to the GMB, The Herald (7/5).

The private media paid lip service to the issue. Nevertheless, they highlighted the continued erosion of workers’ incomes due to the recent price increases. For example, The Sunday Mirror (9/5) pointed out that although CCZ and the Central Statistical Office (CSO) use different figures to measure workers’ incomes, they both illustrated the difficulties workers are encountering. For instance, the conservative CSO figures show that a family of six, whose breadwinner earns a minimum wage of $47,696 “needs $475 525 a month for the food basket alone…” while CCZ figures put the poverty datum line at “$968 525 a month”. The Tribune (7/5) carried similar CCZ figures.

The week also witnessed the Zimbabwean currency sliding from $5,200 to $5,333 against the US dollar. The Daily Mirror (5/7) attributed this to the central bank’s decision to allow the local currency “to operate in free market conditions”. The paper (7/5) quoted an economist pointing out that this would result in increases in the price of most goods, including basic commodities. Said the economist: “All these changes will lead to demands for higher wages as price increases will erode the disposable income of workers and consumers and this will have an inflationary impact on the economy”.

Ends.

The MEDIA UPDATE was produced and circulated by the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe, 15 Duthie Avenue, Alexandra Park, Harare, Tel/fax: 263 4 703702, E-mail: [email protected]

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