MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 1999 ARTICLE 19 / LIGA MOZAMBICANA DOS DIREITOS HUMANOS INTERIM CONCLUSIONS OF PROJECT I INTRODUCTION The elections of 3-4 December 1999 in Mozambique mark another crucial moment in the country’s emergence from civil war and in the democratic transition which began in November 1990, with the approval by the Assembly […]
MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT
MOZAMBIQUE ELECTIONS 1999
ARTICLE 19 / LIGA MOZAMBICANA DOS DIREITOS HUMANOS
INTERIM CONCLUSIONS OF PROJECT
I INTRODUCTION
The elections of 3-4 December 1999 in Mozambique mark another crucial moment in the country’s
emergence from civil war and in the democratic transition which began in November 1990, with the approval by the Assembly of the Republic of a new national constitution, transforming Mozambique into a pluralist state governed by respect for individual rights guaranteed by law. The holding of a second round of multi-party elections for parliament and the presidency, following the first, turbulent “post-conflict” elections of October 1994, must be viewed as further cause for
hope that all Mozambicans have renounced violence for good and have committed themselves to peace and democracy. But there is never any room for complacency. If the civil war which wracked
Mozambique is to be definitively confined to memory, the process of consolidating democracy must continue; to stand still would be to run the risk of moving backwards.
ARTICLE 19, which is an international freedom of expression organisation based in London, has over recent years developed a programme of monitoring the publicly-owned media in countries during election periods. Its focus on this work has been based on the fact that international human rights law, beginning with Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, clearly imposes an obligation upon publicly-owned media to be balanced and impartial in their coverage of political matters – in particular at election time. Its first monitoring exercise in sub-Saharan Africa was in fact the 1994 elections in Mozambique. During those elections, it identified an inbuilt bias in the publicly-owned media towards the ruling party, Frelimo, which undoubtedly assisted it in its victories in both the presidential and parliamentary elections. At the same time, it noted that Radio Mozambique’s coverage had significantly improved in terms of its balance and impartiality during the course of the campaign. The 1994 monitoring project also addressed how freedom of expression was otherwise hindered or promoted during the election campaign – for example, the performance of the electoral commission and the extent of violence and intimidation during the campaign.
For the 1999 elections, ARTICLE 19 and the Mozambique Human Rights League have joined
together with the same agenda in mind. We have taken the 1994 findings as the starting-point for our monitoring project in a context where Mozambique’s laws clearly recognize the obligation of the publicly-owned media to be balanced and impartial [For a fuller account of the legal and institutional fremework for the regulation of the media, see ARTICLE 19âs July 1999 report on Mozambique as part of its Southern Africa Media Law and Practice Series. This report is available in both English and Portuguese from either LDH in Maputo or ARTICLE 19 in London].
Throughout, we have asked ourselves: how far, if at all, have things improved as compared with 1994? The answer which has emerged over the course of the project is overall positive, but there are areas of continuing concern which need to be addressed if there is to be further movement towards a genuinely “level electoral playing field” by the time of the elections in 2004.
Our analysis of the state of freedom of expression, including in the publicly-owned media, is not definitive or complete. In a country the size of Mozambique, no one can have a full picture of how the publicly-owned media is performing or of how campaigning is proceeding. For example, the 1999 project has taken place in six locations (Maputo, Nampula, Inhambane, Sofala, Manica, Quelimane), covering six out of RM’s 13 different language services. This is three more than in 1994, but it still leaves a majority of language services unmonitored. We have sought through our monitoring to identify trends and patterns in election coverage by the publicly-owned media. However, we believe that the behaviour of voters on election day is influenced as much by what has happened in the months before the official campaign as in the final few days before polling, when international observer teams are present. We hope that our findings will be of value to both Mozambicans themselves and to those taking part in observer missions.
One brief methodological point needs to be tackled. We have sometimes been asked why we are monitoring Noticias and Domingo, on the grounds that the questioner considers them to be “private media”. Our position is clear. The fact that these two newspapers are formally owned by a private company, Noticias SRL, should not be allowed to obscure the fact that the main shareholders are two parastatals, the Bank of Mozambique and the National Insurance Company, and that their editors and directors are largely the same as those who held these positions before its “semi-privatisation” in 1993. Their clear pro-Frelimo orientation hardly reinforces the arguments of those who argue that the state no longer has any influence over these newspapers. This is not an academic issue. These newspapers remain widely-read by those Mozambicans who are literate and the fact that the CNE does not appear to have considered that they are “public” in character has allowed them to cover the elections without much apparent consideration of issues of balance and impartiality.
We present in section 2 the provisional conclusions of our project and some initial recommendations for action during the next parliament. We welcome any comments which people may have regarding these conclusions and recommendations. Our final conclusions and recommendations will be contained in a more detailed report which we hope to publish in the
first quarter of 2000. That report will seek to marshall the evidence on which we have based our final conclusions and recommendations and will provide a fuller account of the methodology which we have sought to employ [For a detailed description of the methodology used during this project, see ARTICLE 19’s training manual, Election Reporting: A Practical Guide to Media Monitoring (London, November 1998). Copies of this report are available from either LDH in Maputo or ARTICLE 19 in London. A Portuguese version of the manual was produced for this project and is available from LDH]. For the moment, readers should refer to the “raw material” which exists in the weekly monitoring reports which we have published during the election period.
Section 3 of this interim report summarises our findings for the week 29 November – 5 December, the last week of the election campaign.
II PROVISIONAL CONCLUSIONS AND INITIAL RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE ARTICLE 19/MOZAMBIQUE HUMAN RIGHTS LEAGUE 1999 ELECTION MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT REGARDING THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PUBLIC MEDIA
Our provisional conclusions, while focusing on the public media, also address other related issues which we believe were important in shaping how far there was a genuinely “level playing field” during the 1999 election campaign.
Our provisional conclusions are as follows:
1) RM showed a significant improvement in the balance and impartiality of its election coverage
compared with 1994, but there remained a tendency at points to focus in greater quantity and less critically on government and Frelimo activities and statements as compared with opposition parties. RM appears throughout to have sought with considerable success to meet high standards of balance and impartiality. This is important to note given that RM has by far the greatest audience of any media outlet in Mozambique.
2) There were occasional differences between the content and quality of coverage of the Portuguese
language services and the local language services of RM in the five provinces outside Maputo where we monitored output. The differences, when they occurred, usually tended towards more negative coverage of opposition parties. However, local language programming was often simply a direct translation of Portuguese programming.
3) TVM showed some improvement in the balance and impartiality of its coverage compared with 1994, but there remained a general tendency to focus in greater quantity and less critically on government and Frelimo activities as compared with opposition parties. Some opposition parties were unable to take advantage of their direct access opportunities, mainly due to lack of
technical resources (parties are required to record their messages in tape and then take the tapes to RM or TVM).
4) The content and coverage of TVM was predominantly shaped in Maputo, leading to little local
coverage that was distinctive. Local language programming was usually simply a translation of
Portuguese language programming.
5) Noticias showed a minor improvement in the balance and impartiality of its election coverage
compared with 1994, but there remained a marked disparity between the quantity and content of coverage of the government and Frelimo as against opposition parties. All editions of the newspaper during the election campaign contained political adverts for Frelimo and its incumbent President, Joaquim Chissano, on its masthead. The Beira-based Diario da Mocambique’s performance was very similar and clearly-pro Frelimo.
6) The weekly Domingo newspaper was the most partisan public media outlet of all, clearly and
consistently favouring Frelimo and President Chissano.
7) The relative disparities in the quantity and content of the coverage of the election campaign in the public media reflected in significant measure the fact that Frelimo was a much more active campaigning force than the opposition parties, including the main opposition party, Renamo. However it also reflected the fact that the public media appear on the evidence collected to remain to a greater (TVM, Noticias, Diario da Mocambique, Domingo) or lesser (RM) extent “Frelimo-minded”.
8) Perhaps the greatest impediment to a “level playing field” in the 1999 elections was not degrees of bias in the public media, but the widely-acknowledged ability of Frelimo to raise campaign funds over a number of years up to election time far in addition to those provided on an equitable basis by the CNE. It is generally accepted that this included the harnessing of state resources for the campaign. Hard evidence as to the scale on which this was done is in short supply, not least because none of the parties, including Frelimo, are under any legal obligation to publish annual accounts. Nor have any of the parties voluntarily declared private donations received or
private assets owned. This issue needs to be urgently addressed during the next parliament.
9) The privately-owned media reflected the full range of approaches towards the contesting parties – from clear preference for Frelimo (eg RTK) to strong favouritism towards Renamo (eg Imparcial). Some outlets (eg Metical) sought to achieve balanced and impartial coverage. However, whichever way, the influence of the private media was limited outside of the main cities of Mozambique.
10) There was much less violence and intimidation than in 1994, although numerous localised incidents did occur, with both of the main parties accusing the other of being to blame. All parties, unlike in 1994, were generally able to move, associate and assemble freely around the whole country. There were no “no-go” areas this time around.
11) CNE carried out its duties impartially and fairly in general. It fully informed parties about how to exercise their direct access rights on the public broadcast media, although it did not appear to act on behalf of parties who had problems in taking advantage of this right on TVM, on the grounds that the blame lay with the parties themselves. Prior to the campaign, it carried out seminars with the media, including the public broadcasters, on how to achieve balanced and impartial coverage during the campaign. However, because the CNE falsely (and conveniently for the government) conceptualised Noticias, Domingo and Diario de Mocambique as “private media”, it left those newspapers free to display a strong pro-Frelimo bias in their coverage of the election campaign.
There were major efforts at civic education under the auspices of the CNE. However, in part due to finite resources, many rural areas received less attention than the cities and towns tended to. In some rural areas, Frelimo appears to have been more active in undertaking its own brand of civic education than the CNE. In none of the above regards did the CNE publish or otherwise publicise any formal guidelines, so that the Mozambican public could have access to specific information about the basis on which these activities should be being conducted.
As was the case with opposition parties and their direct access rights to airtime on public broadcasting outlets, the CNE does not appear to have been proactive in seeking openness and transparency regarding donations and assets available to the contesting parties above and
beyond what the CNE itself disbursed directly. This might be partly explained by the fact that the
commissioners of the CNE were all representatives of parties with seats in the previous parliament. Party political figures are usually cautious about exposing their party’s finances to too much public scrutiny.
Our intial recommendations are as follows:
* RM and TVM should be allowed to take a number of necessary final steps to establish themselves as genuine public service broadcasters. In particular, a transparent and independent appointments process for appointing members of their boards should be created, based on public hearings before a parliamentary committee to establish the journalistic or relevant media management expertise of potential board members.
* All regulatory authorities such as the CSCS and the INCM (which issues private broadcasting licences) should be made statutorily independent of government and employ the same method as described above in the appointment of their boards.
* The government should completely divest itself of ownership of newspapers. In this regard, the
parastatals, the Bank of Mozambique and the National Insurance Company, should sell their shareholdings in Noticias SRL, the ostensibly private company which owns Noticias and Domingo.
* In order to move beyond allegation and counter-allegation regarding the assets and resources which have been available to the respective political parties for the 1999 elections, all parties should in future be obliged by law to publish annual accounts. In addition, an independent body should be established to whom parties will be required to declare on an annual basis all private donations received and assets owned. This body should be established during the first session of
the new parliament.
* More broadly in terms of the need for openness and transparency in public life in Mozambique, the constitutional right to information should be urgently embodied in legislative form through a strong and credible Freedom of Information Act.
* If by the time of future elections, Noticias, Domingo and Diario de Mocambique remain fundamentally “public” in character, successor electoral commissions should subject them to the same obligations to have balanced and impartial coverage as RM and TVM and closely monitor their performance.
* Successors to CNE should in future be composed of commissioners characterised by their independence of political parties and by long-standing reputations for integrity. The present party “stitch-up” may have been necessary for the credibility of electoral commissions during the first five years post-conflict, but the further consolidation and deepening of democracy during the next five requires that this transitional arrangement be superceded by the creation – as in other areas of
Mozambican public life – of a genuinely independent institution for the supervision of elections.
III ASSESSMENT OF THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PUBLIC MEDIA BETWEEN 29th NOV- 5th DECEMBER 1999
Noticias
During the week November 29th – 5th December the Noticias newspaper published about 24 stories related to the electoral process. Eleven, out of 24, were about the Frelimo party, currently in Government and running for the 1999 legislative elections, and its presidential candidate Joaquim Chissano, the current President. Seven stories referred to the main opposition party Renamo-UE (a coalition formed by Renamo and 11 smaller parties) and its candidate Afonso Dhlakama, while the rest were about the activities of the 12 other smaller opposition parties.
In general the content of these stories did not differ much from the previous editions. The two major contenders, Frelimo and Renamo-UE continued to exchange accusations. In its edition of 29th November, Noticias says, On his arrival in Tete Dhlakama said that in some districts of Tete Province elections may not take place this week because Frelimo had organised “delinquents and agents” from the state intelligence services SISE to hinder the oppositions work.
The newspaper accuses Renamo members of alleged acts of vandalism. Activities of other political parts were also mentioned, namely the UMO coalition and PIMO.
We should note that Noticias made some attempt at fairness, especially in the way pictures illustrating the stories were used. Pictures used included Frelimo supporters and President Chissano but pictures were also provided of other opposition parties campaigning around the country. In the following editions, Noticias highlighted the end of the campaign and preparations for the voting process, but tended to give Frelimo and its candidate quantitative advantage and an uncritical
coverage.
On Saturday, December 4th the edition was dominated by the voting process initiated on Friday. Both Chissano and Dhlakama were mentioned and the statements they made after voting were published fairly.
DIARIO DE MOCAMBIQUE
In general coverage of the electoral process by the Diario de Mocambique(DM) was biased during this week. In four editions, DM published 5 stories on Frelimo and 2 on the opposition parties. One of the main stories says Frelimo closes its campaign amidst a festive mood.
Another story says “Renamo closes its campaign in Nampula admist allegations about the fictitious ballot Boxes”.
The paper also published several stories on preparations for elections in Dondo and Nhamatanda districts in central Sofala Province.
DOMINGO
During this week (29th November-5th December) Domingo highlighted the way the elections took place around the country. Reference to problems experienced by STAE, namely the delivery of certain kits to mistaken locations, is also made.
RADIO MOCAMBIQUE
Evidence from our monitoring suggests that RM-Inhambane made considerable efforts to carry out a balanced and impartial coverage of the electoral campaign, giving all parties a fair amount of coverage and content.
In Beira, central Sofala Province, out of a total of 30 stories on the electoral campaign, 11 were about Frelimo, 14 on other opposition parties, whilst the rest were on events related to the electoral process itself with no mention of political parties. The stories were generally extracted from the RMâs main Portuguese services which is broadcast nationwide from its headquarters in Maputo. In very few occasions did journalists present original stories.
In Quelimane, our monitoring suggests that RM-Quelimane was balanced and impartial although on the last day of the campaign, 30th of November, it tended to favour Frelimo by carrying lengthy interviews with party and government officials.
RM-Nampula, in northern Nampula Province, generally was biased towards Frelimo and its
candidate, Joaquim Chissano. News bulletins in xi-Makuwa were mostly a translation of material
broadcast in Portuguese, but much more emphasis was given to negative stories on Renamo.
TVM
TVM continued with a very centralised news service, all in Portuguese.
