President Robert Mugabe’s hate-filled rant against the private media on Friday betrayed growing intolerance by his government towards the independent media in the face of widening fissures in Zanu PF fuelled by unresolved issues surrounding his succession.
Standard Comment
Mugabe’s wife is holding a series of rallies across the country where it has become apparent that she is preparing for life after her 91-year-old husband.
The private media has played its role to interpret the meaning of these star rallies where Cabinet ministers are forced to abandon their offices to show loyalty to the First Lady.
More importantly, the media has asked critical questions about the source of farming equipment, cooking oil, suits, shoes, soap and other trinkets Grace has been dishing out at her rallies.
Mugabe told the Zanu PF central committee that the private media wrote fictitious stories about the party’s internal battles. ‘
He singled out The Standard and its sister paper, NewsDay, in his vitriolic attack.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
Mugabe claimed that his wife’s intentions were being misinterpreted by the media as she was fulfilling her duties as Zanu PF secretary for women’s affairs.
However, without any hint of irony, the Zanu PF leader lashed out against ruling party officials, accusing them of leaking stories to the newspapers.
He also complained against indiscipline, especially among youths who are said to be divided over Grace’s ambitions to succeed her husband.
A few months ago, Mugabe admitted that Zanu PF members were coalescing behind his deputies Phelekezela Mphoko and Emmerson Mnangagwa as they prepared for his eventual departure.
His wife, who also railed against privately-owned newspapers during a rally in Rushinga last week, has complained about factionalism resurfacing in Zanu PF less than a year after she led a crusade against former Vice-President Joice Mujuru.
Mugabe has been claiming Mujuru was pushed out of Zanu PF because she was leading a faction that wanted him out of power.
Before the Zanu PF purges that also cost several ministers and Zanu PF chairpersons their jobs, Mugabe used to claim that reports of factionalism were a creation of the media.
The rants by Mugabe and his wife were preceded by threats to clamp down on the private media by Secretary for Information, George Charamba.
Charamba, a civil servant, was moaning about the reportage in the private media concerning factionalism in Zanu PF. He claimed Mugabe does not lose sleep over the reports, yet the angry reaction by his boss showed that he was really upset with the media for speaking truth to power.
The threats have to be taken seriously, especially because of the regime’s history of using both legal and extralegal weapons in a bid to silence critics.
Media houses have been bombed, journalists were kidnapped and arrested for doing their job in the past and it would not be surprising if the government relapses into that dark era.
Charamba is in the habit of using a shadowy column in the state media to attack privately-owned newspapers and issuing all sorts of threats.
There is no doubt that he is angry on Mugabe’s behalf and wants the space occupied by the private media closed. The thinking in Mugabe’s government is not only primitive, but has no space under the new dispensation ushered in by the adoption of a new Constitution in 2013.
Mugabe, his wife and Charamba have to be reminded that it is not the private media’s duty to hide the government’s dismal performance and the Zanu PF implosion.
Their incoherent rambling about journalists and their media houses has no basis and is typical of a regime that has reached the end of its tether.
