Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been stripped of his title in news bulletins aired by the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC), as the broadcaster worsens its attacks on him, an observer as noted. (Pictured: Prime Minister Tsvangirai)
According to the observer based in Zimbabwe, ZBC news readers now regularly refer to Tsvangirai as the leader of the MDC (T) party instead of the Prime Minister as part of its hostile campaign against his party. In another example of the biased wording the ZBC news bulletins are using to ridicule Tsvangirai, last Wednesday night the newsreader said: Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the MDC (T) party, has chickened out of elections.
Political analyst Bekithemba Mhlanga says this is part of a bigger plot to make Tsvangirai appear insignificant, and that there is worse to come for him as the country nears an election, marked for 2011.
Zanu (PF) is already in election mode and therefore they will do their best to denigrate Tsvangirai and render him as a non-person as it were. They realise if they continue calling him Prime Minister it gives him some sort of stature that ZANU PF does not believe he has earned, Mhlanga said.
Despite the country being under a government of national unity (GNU), the state broadcaster remains tightly controlled by Robert Mugabes party and is used as a machine to churn out Zanu (PF) propaganda.
Recently George Charamba, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, announced that the government has no plans to issue licenses to independent broadcasters, which is contrary to what is required by the global political agreement (GPA). Charambas statement means that millions of Zimbabweans will be force-fed propaganda as the country goes into elections and beyond, if Zanu (PF) is allowed to continue ignoring the GPA.
Mhlanga says the best tactic the MDC has against Zanu (PF) propaganda is to rely on the support of ordinary people in Zimbabwe. The MDC will have to rely on the moral integrity it has earned with Zimbabweans since the GPA was signed. The number of seats the MDC won last time and the number of votes that Tsvangirai got at the last presidential election were accumulated against a very violent and vitriolic ZBC, he said.?
Post published in: News