ZESN Report on the 31 July 2013 Harmonised Elections       ZEC should develop clear timelines and conditions for the public media to provide direct and indirect access to contestants to avoid a repeat of past elections where ZBC set up its own timeframes and conditions to deny access to ZANU PF opponents. There is need to overhaul the governance structures of the public media to insulate them from political manipulation and abuse. There is need for firm action against those that use extra-legal practices to curtail media freedom in order to eliminate the culture of impunity enjoyed by media freedom violators. The country’s legislative media framework should be democratised in order to align it with the new Constitution to engender free journalistic enterprise, freedom of expression and access to information as basic civil liberties and not privileges enjoyed at the benevolence of media licensing boards. More private broadcasting stations, including community radio broadcasters, must be licensed and independently regulated to allow for the proliferation of diverse sources of information accessible to ordinary Zimbabweans. There should be a converged media regulatory framework anchored on the principle of selfregulation. A notable example of the impact of social media on the campaign was the emergence of the Facebook character, Baba Jukwa,who claimed to be a member of the leadership of ZANU-PF on a mission to expose the inner machinations in that party. His posts, which appeared to contain authentic information, were closely followed in the pre-election period as they claimed to portend the imminent defeat of ZANU-PF. After the party’s overwhelming victory some claimed that Baba Jukwa was a deliberate plant by ZANU-PF to give the illusion that ZANU-PF was collapsing, an assumption that was then belied by its overwhelming election victory. Of concern during this campaign however, were the attacks on journalists in the months before the elections. These are shown in the table below: Attacks on journalists May-June 2013 Table: 10 Name of journalist Designation Date Description Various Reporters from various news organisations Freelance Reporter Reporter-Masvingo Mirror 21 June Reporter - The Independent newspaper Reporter - The Chronicle newspaper 7 June Kidnapped and held by ZANU-PF supporters at the party’s headquarters Assaulted by alleged ZANU-PF supporters Allegedly manhandled by MDC-T security staff during the party’s primaries. Assaulted whilst covering a protest by supporters at MDC-T headquarters in Harare. Assaulted by members of the Prime Minister’s entourage. Paul Pindani Bernard Mapwanyire Herbert Moyo Mashudu Netsianda 14 June 8 June 8 June 49 | P a g e