Tawanda Majoni
Those fights, which look set to be uglier as we get closer to the next general elections in 2018, pose a significant threat to media freedom as the participants increasingly view public scrutiny as a stumbling block to their ambitions. Here is the broad picture. Levels of media freedom and independence in Zimbabwe, as elsewhere in the developing world, rise or fall in direct proportion to the intensity of the prevailing political crisis.
This applies particularly where Zanu (PF) is concerned. When the ruling party feels under threat, independent media space is threatened. Interestingly, even the official (state-controlled) media are severely affected. State-sponsored quasi-legal and extra-judicial attacks on the media rise as problems in Zanu (PF) increase.
This general trend is evident in the post-1999 political era – as trans-border or external dynamics combined with local forces pose to pose the biggest threat to President Robert Mugabe’s and Zanu (PF) rule since independence in 1980. Civil society was becoming more and more dynamic, the strongest opposition since independence, MDC, had just been formed, and the international community, particularly the west, was ratcheting up pressure on the regime. Civil society, labour and the student movement converged to reject a manipulated constitutional referendum.
Regime change agenda
This scared Mugabe and his party and the result was a populist and unplanned fast-track land redistribution programme that the sitting government adopted as a way of wooing back electoral support ahead of parliamentary elections in June 2000.
Of course, the programme boomeranged on the regime especially for its violation of property rights and the violence and corruption that accompanied it, giving more relevance to the opposition. It solidified western international pressure on the government as manifested through restrictive measures adopted by the US and the EU and isolation of Mugabe and his lieutenants.
In response, the Mugabe regime focused its energies on vilifying the west, particularly Britain, which it chose to view as the source of the problems facing Zanu (PF). That bore far reaching consequences for internal political and civil agencies, among them the opposition, civil society and the independent media.
Zanu (PF) saw them as agents of a regime change agenda led by the west. As a way of suppressing scrutiny and dissent, the Mugabe establishment upped its repression of the independent media through malicious legislation like the Access to information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). It complemented this by closing down newspapers and broadcast initiatives while harshly reacting to critical media content through intimidation, arrests and persecution of journalists.
Mugabe was anxious
This continued until some months after the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU) in early 2009. After this, as I pointed out in a recent interview with the Swedish Journalisten TV, there was a marked decline in attacks on the local media. The main reason is that Mugabe was anxious to regain legitimacy lost at the acutely disputed June 2008 presidential run-off. This would give Zanu (PF) space to regroup and revitalise, as it indeed did.
The party, which continued to wield strategic power under the coalition, almost completely concentrated its attention on the next elections and focused on a new way of winning the polls without looking like a pariah outfit. That strategy would include keeping away from the independent media, in addition to minimising political violence, while putting in place clandestine electoral mechanisms that would guarantee Zanu (PF) a resounding victory, which came after the July 2013 polls.
It seems the party was always confident of victory and that explains its decision not to clamp down on critical media. Readers will agree that, generally, journalists have enjoyed a period of relative relief since the elections, with minimal state-sponsored violations of media freedoms. The “resounding victory†obviously placed Mugabe and his party in a comfort zone.
New sense of crisis
But good things don’t last long. While Zanu (PF) has a huge majority in Parliament and the opposition is grappling to rediscover itself, renewed fights in Zanu (PF) have introduced a new sense of crisis.
Mugabe is panicking because the one centre of power that he thought he had achieved by ejecting Joice Mujuru and her loyalists after the 2014 December congress has proved to be evasive. The Young Turks known as Generation 40 are fighting the old guard mainly represented by Emmerson Mnangagwa. Non-one, not even the omni-present spooks, have a clue what is happening as the turf battles get weirder.
Mugabe might fail to stand for re-election in 2018. Reports indicate that Mnangagwa prefers himself as the Old Man’s successor, while G40 will cling to the aged president to spite the old guard. In order to wriggle out of this highly factionalised mess, they have to find an outside enemy to deal with. That won’t come in the form of the current opposition, which is severely weakened.
The media must be the devil. That is why, in less than a month, four key figures in government have issued ominous threats against the media. Mugabe issued a stern warning against the media for “lying†about the factional fights in the party. His wife, Grace, religiously took this up and accused journalists of having an agenda against her.
Mugabe’s spokesperson and information secretary, George Charamba, followed suit and the new media minister, Chris Mushowe, has just issued a warning against an “oppositional†press. There is one common theme in their utterances: We are coming for you if you keep differing with us. – To comment on this article, please contact majonitt@gmail.com
Post published in: Featured