High levels of political violence, repressive legislation, and the ruling party's abuse of the publicly-owned media are some of the factors that call into question the possibility of free and fair parliamentary elections in Zimbabwe next year.
These are among the sobering conclusions of a fact finding mission from the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) which visited Zimbabwe in June 2004.
Led by a senior Mozambican journalist, Fernando Goncalves, the mission published its report this week, warning of the "extremely volatile and polarised" political environment in Zimbabwe.
Goncalves currently edits the independent weekly "Savana".
He has also been chief news editor at AIM, and worked for many years in Zimbabwe. His detailed knowledge of Zimbabwean politics and the Zimbabwean media made him an ideal candidate to head the mission.
Goncalves told AIM that the mission consulted as widely as it could while in Zimbabwe, meeting with journalists of the independent media, representatives of the Zimbabwe Union of Journalists and other NGOs, various academics and lawyers, and the main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Meetings were requested well in advance with representatives of the ruling ZANU-PF, and with journalists from the public media. But there was no response to these requests, and the MISA mission was not told why.
"Our assessment is that there are very serious problems as far as management of the elections is concerned", Goncalves told AIM.
The report notes that "The legal framework is too restrictive to allow people to participate freely in the conduct of the affairs of their country. New, more restrictive legislation that is being proposed will just make things even worse".
The press has been shackled through the misnamed Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act. The same treatment is now likely to be extended to NGOs, under a new bill that will demand the registration of all NGOs.
The report points out that "a plethora of security and media legislation" already impose stringent restrictions on civic bodies and other NGOs, and the proposed new legislation is likely to create further difficulties for their work.
The report describes political violence and intimidation as "pervasive", and it seems that such phenomena "if not promoted by the government are at the very least tolerated when the victims are members or supporters of the opposition".
The MISA mission, it continues, "was informed that veterans of the liberation struggle, members of the Youth National Service, and members and supporters of the ruling party appeared to act with impunity when their actions were directed against opposition supporters, who are often described as traitors, working hand-in-glove with the British and other imperialist forces to derail the land redistribution programme".
The report also noted "the campaign of vilification, ridicule and psychological pressure" against the Catholic Bishop of Bulawayo, Pius Ncube, "because of the views he has expressed against politically motivated violence".
The mission was told that "the space for dissent in Zimbabwe, however small, was being closed down". Nowhere is this more obvious than in the media, with the closure of a paper that had once been selling 80,000 copies a day, the "Daily News", and the more recent suspension of "The Tribune".
In general, the number of attacks on journalists and the media in southern Africa has declined substantially over the past year. But Zimbabwe has bucked this trend: the latest annual MISA report registers 102 attacks on the Zimbabwean media (including assault, imprisonment and legal threats).
"This has created a feeling of uncertainty among practicing journalists and the media houses", the mission remarks. "Because of fear, trust is lost. Journalists no longer trust each other.
The public has lost trust and faith in the media, and vice versa.
Journalists feel restricted, and find it more and more difficult to hold the government accountable".
The most powerful medium in Zimbabwe is undoubtedly radio - the state, however, holds a monopoly on broadcasting. You will not find in Zimbabwe the multitude of private, religious or community radios that now exist in Mozambique.
The mission found that Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings (ZBH) is accused of "blatant abuse of power". The radio is now used to air "inciting and hateful messages" against opponents - not simply against the MDC, but also "opposing views within the ruling party, NGOs, trade unions not associated with the ruling party, media groups such as MISA, advocacy groups and civil rights activists etc." The Information Minister himself, Jonathan Moyo, the report adds "was accused not only of interfering in the programming and editorial independence of ZBH, but was said to be in the habit of using the public broadcaster as personal property".
But there are some encouraging signs. Goncalves notes that President Robert Mugabe himself has referred to the problem of violence. He has sought to use his authority as Commander-in- Chief to dissuade violence and encourage members of the security forces to act against those promoting violence. The report regards this as "a positive step towards the normalisation of the situation in Zimbabwe".
But other critical issues must be resolved before the basic conditions for free and fair elections are in place. The MISA report lists these as: return to the rule of law; establishment of an independent electoral commission; voting on one day "subject to sufficient number of polling stations being established and changes being made to the voting procedure to enable all to vote"; and maintaining the integrity of the vote "by refraining from telling people that their vote is not after all secret" (this refers to incidents of intimidation reported in a recent by-election).
A further key demand raised in the report is the repeal of those aspects of security and media legislation that restrict the ability of political parties to campaign freely, and curtail media freedoms.
Fonte: AIM
