Elections - dangling the mascot of reforms

In the absence of a big, permeating idea, the two MDC formations shall continue to play round and round with the two Rs: reforms and registration. This is the more reason Zanu-PF will have to be forceful with its ideas to fill the contested space.

Juice is dead; ART has died, in spite of a frantic white mouth-to-mouth (read recent white economist comments on ART). It has been a case of the dead succeeding the dead.

ART has been followed by candidate confirmation exercise for the MDC-T. Except for the severely subdued drama in this process, MDC-T would have, very soon after, slid rapidly into utter oblivion. It is still in the limelight, albeit for worse.

For it was not lost to watchers that this internal confirmation process, even though so much hyped, acknowledged and marked deep divisions within the MDC-T, while suggesting democratic rituals the party could only disappoint.

The whole exercise was meant to pre-empt genuine primaries. Its results were preordained, indeed benefited those meant to be saved, despatched those on a long death row, all in a ritualistic, phased process.

Who can be convinced about the sincerity of a process that  finally buries Mhashu, all along long dead? Or Shoko, all along scapegoated, ostracised?

The process hardly passed for a decent veneer, indeed was a case of disingenuous rigging.

Beaten by dawn
While this process might just be finishing, it is far from settling internal contradictions which the party unhappily carries forward, all to the polls, its new graveyard.

From the policy conference to the confirmation process, it has been the proverbial dilemma of a witch caught by dawn: whether or not to pit the abomination of witchcraft against the horror of nakedness in front of the whole village.

Woe betide, the dogs are barking, the village is awake and has seen both. A party which cannot grant itself genuine democracy cannot promise it to the voter, let alone rouse its vote.

Zanu-PF learnt this the hard way.

Dead by remains and records
Reform, registration, the two alibis. I begin with registration, itself the shortest. The constitutional amendment that created constitutional commissions clearly clipped the powers of the Registrar General's Office when it comes to voter registration.

The authority of the RG's Office was overlaid by ZEC, to which a supervisory role has been added. Beyond this constitutional arrangement, Cabinet has been grappling with this same matter, noting with concern the slow pace of voter registration, urging for its pruning so the dead are truly in the grave, both by remains and by records.

Mudede came under tremendous pressure, indeed is still under it, daily smarting. Interestingly, this is pressure from all political parties, indicating there is consensus on this one matter of registration.

Every party needs it done well.
The quest for the cleaning up of the voter registration, or its updating, thus cannot be an agenda item for any one party. Or if it should be, then that glory goes to Zanu-PF given that it is MDC-T's NGO underlings that face allegations of seeking to dirty  the registration process.

They were attempting to forge voter confirmation slips. They have been trying to silo these for a rigging exercise. The cases are still in the courts and no amount of righteous calls for a clean voters' role will cleanse these formations.

Keeping the pot boiling
Much more, the real issue on registration has been around funding, which the MDC-T, abusing its control of the national purse, has not been too keen to support. There is no better way to delay polls than to raise a stink around the voters' roll.

And incompleteness, like inaccuracies, does it.

What has not been disclosed is that, both for the referendum and for these elections, Biti, reflecting the disposition of his party, has been a reluctant player.

The most recent releases to ZEC - done only this week - have not come from Treasury, whatever claims Biti might want to make after this disbursement he would have been only too glad to block. Or to reduce as he did with similar referendum-time disbursements.

The money came from the joint efforts of two ministers, all of them Zanu-PF. The MDC game is dilatory, which is what makes the registration "grievance" drop so vacuous from MDC-T lips. But they need the noise, all to keep the pot boiling.

The good novel they must write
The issue of reform is even more interesting. It takes two forms: the so-called media reforms, the so-called security sector reforms. I will limit my focus on the so-called media reforms. There you meet both ignorance and duplicitous claims.

There is a misconception that the issue of equal access is a political case and requirement for all media. That it is a GPA issue affecting all media. It is neither. You cannot regulate for access in respect of a medium to which there are no entry barriers, whether natural or man-made.

Straightforwardly that acquits newspapers. There is no law that bars anyone from founding a newspaper, including political parties. Your money, your newsprint kupera! Was it Oscar Wilde who wrote if he wanted to read a good novel, he wrote one? If the two MDCs need good newspapers, they must found one.

If they have not found their own newspapers, as did Zanu-PF, it is because they are happy with ongoing coverage, or with the level of influence they already exert on some existing titles, which influence can be relied upon as countervailing.

I know a lot about the latter, about this influence, how it is realised on a daily basis. I challenge  anyone in MDC or its support groups to deny this one. The polarisation of the media, itself a pretext for the media reform discourse, attests to rivalled access, never skewed access. And check, who are the rivals? Political parties themselves!

It is  politics - not the media - which is dividing the media industry. And that is what needs reforming, a point so forcefully made a few days ago by Madame Kazembe of ZEC.

And to attack the media under the guise of nebulous reforms is to assault the victim. Culprits can't reform what they have caused, what they have precipitated. Let's get real, please.

MDC's tireless tongs
Certainly the issue of access arises where public monies are used to fund newspapers. Any newspaper that is funded from the national purse must operate to common good, operate on the principle of equal access, including but not limited to carrying the whole the gamut of political voices in the country.

It carries the burden of public responsibility and trust. But as far as I know, Zimbabwe does not have a single newspaper that runs on public funds, none whatsoever.

Unless one regards the Government Gazette as a newspaper, which it is not. That exempts Zimpapers against which such claims are often made, largely out of ignorance, or plain covetousness.

Yes, Zimpapers leads the market, survives on market instruments - not subventions - something which makes the case for its reforms plain absurd.

Its revenues are wholly market-based, which exposes the group to full market punishment should it offend against the rules of the game.

Clearly the so-called media reforms have never been about the media; they have been about the quest to advantageously self-position - almost narcissistic - by some political message senders.

They should not hide behind the parapet of outstanding issues. Would it be right for Zanu-PF to agitate for the reform of the Daily News or News Day, merely because Mugabe routinely gets a raw deal editorially, merely because Zanu-PF is roundly reviled, pilloried? The essence of media reforms in public good, summarised in reader interest.

Here, reader interest is not at issue, which is what robs this fawning campaign of any of its pretended civic claims. Let MISA, itself an MDC-T tong, admit to that prostituted role. Only then can we all engage with sincerity.

Breathing into a bleached shell
Public money was only used to buy out Argus, and this was Nigerian money used for that purpose, so far back in history. Beyond that gesture, Zimpapers has survived on its own, and has passed on to shareholders who include the moribund Mass Media Trust.

The then minister of Information, Dr Shamuyarira, was clear on the ideal relationship between politics and Zimpapers: he wanted Zimpapers cloistered or screened from direct political direction, which is why he created the Trust to play buffer.

That Trust lived and served the industry for a long while, until costs of keeping it made it an encumbrance, even parasitic, given that it lived off dividend largely from  Zimpapers, the only performing investment in its portfolio.

At creation, the Trust was a vehicle and an investment arm in the media. Beyond the takeover of both Zimpapers, Ziana and Kingstons, it did little else to justify a further life, let alone an expanded one. After all Zimpapers was now on the Stock Exchange, as indeed it still is, and was, has been governed more by the rules of the ZSE than by the Trust whose role progressively thinned out.

Today the MDC-T is arguing for the revival of a bleached shell lying indifferently on the sandy beach, hoping it can still yield an edible snail.

How wrong!

Sloughing off image of treachery
Recently, efforts were made to revive the Trust, but true to form, Biti killed those efforts swiftly, citing bankruptcy! Today he carps about media reforms as if he is the wronged party.

So who is blocking the so-called media reforms?

A case for media reforms cannot be predicated on Zimpapers. Or on the re-launch of an investment Trust which, apart from being superfluous, the MDC-T itself has blocked through the finance minister.

Much worse it cannot be argued for on grounds of the editorial slant of papers under its stable.

These papers do not have to pursue an editorial thrust liked by anyone, pampering to anyone, for as long as they observe the pillar principles of majority voice, sovereignty and national interest, values for which the Nigerian grant was meant.

And MDC-T is none of the above, to demand dutiful coverage.

Zanu-PF has been upholding these to deserve support. Like all interest groups, the MDC formations must deserve good coverage; they must not seek to merit it by legal fiat.

When you call for sanctions against your own people, against your own livelihoods, you hardly deserve accolades. Nor do those who deny you such, deserve to be reformed. The formations must slough off the image of treachery, indeed become loyal opposition.

A hoary question
What must be demanded for in all newspapers is fairness, objectivity and ethical conduct. Needless to say these are standards whose absence convicts all publishers in the country.

Reform in this area is sorely needed. But this cannot fall under inter-party dialogue; cannot be raised as a larger national political question, let alone get touted as a precondition for elections.

As is clear from the British media experience, an errant media shall always be with us, but that can't stop the sun from rising or setting. Has anyone stopped to ask why a hoary democracy like Britain still grapples with the same question, centuries after coming into being?

Or how a party or leader threatening the media for unsympathetic coverage can himself ever be the architect of media reforms?

When the election period comes
A good case for access can be made in respect of electronic media. There, one finds a natural entry barrier by way of limited frequencies.

Not everyone can be a broadcaster, which is why those favoured in that regard must serve all with integrity.

That includes conceding equal or commensurate access, depending of course on the principle agreed to by society.

Our lawmakers were alive to this matter, which is why during the "election period", all electronic media, ZBC included, lose control of the airwaves to ZEC.

In election times, ZBC comes under the direct supervision of the electoral authority, the same way that the Registrar General's Office does.

Why has this statutory reality been overlooked in the agitation for the so-called media reforms? Much more, the new Constitution imparts editorial autonomy to State media institutions.

What more is being agitated for? Why would a party conscious of this new constitutional requirement, indeed a part to it, push for an all-party Board for ZBC - outside the law - when in fact the spirit of the new Constitution is to insulate the broadcaster from political control? I hope the argument does not extend to licensing issues, whether for radio or for television.

Radios have been licensed and are being licensed. Biti could have helped the process move better, faster, if he had supported the digitalisation process, through which the spectrum is more efficiently utilised, through which more stations will be feasible.

As with many things, he would rather pay the IMF than push forward national processes and investments. There is a deeper, core question: is it good public policy to handle licensing issues for fleeting political exigencies.

Legitimising pirate stations
In all this, where is the issue of pirate radios, themselves amounting to an explicit provision in the GPA, themselves skewing the current political playing field.

I notice that far from curtailing their activities, these pirate radio stations have been expanding their services, moving personnel, all to strengthen their oppositional political reach.

If ever there was any proof needed of their political role, this is it. A lame argument is often raised, that Zanu-PF voices are often carried on these stations.

True, they are, but as butts of opposition-inclined bulletins and talk-shows. Zanu-PF voices are perfunctorily carried, all in anticipation of or to help raise this defence when attacks come. Of course Zanu-PF has been foolish to bite that one.

The business which can't wait
And the upshot to all this? Well, that the MDC formations are short of permeating ideas, ideas which can enkindle the Nation about to go for polls.

They are fumbling for a thousand excuses, all to avoid elections they profess to want. But the larger is failing. Firstly, the owners of the economy who are their handlers cannot take anymore losses, cannot continue in this prolonged limbo.

They want a speedy resolution to the political question, a drift underpinned by near-unconditional suspension of sanctions.

This is why Biti has had to break ranks, pleading with the President to proclaim election dates for greater business certainty.

The logic of the party and the calculations of business are at odds, creating a new situation for the formations. Even Welshman Ncube is feeling it.

The workers at Zisco are now up in arms, jeopardizing his political hopes at a time of intra-party turmoil.

While the formations are nursing hopes of winning polls, their sponsors have moved on, reconciling themselves to a Zanu-PF win, but carefully planning how to diminish the margin of the win so  a triumphant Zanu-PF can still be curtailed.

That is the game in town. No one takes the complaints of the MDC formations seriously. The real danger for Zanu-PF would be to get distracted from mobilizing for a resounding win, while taking MDC complaints too seriously.

Including unduly worrying about the forthcoming Sadc Summit as if Sadc has ever dictated. It has always followed progress done here, all at the behest of Zanu-PF.

Icho!

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nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw