Finally, in February 2005, the Government enacted regulations that were supposed to allow political parties access to radio and television.40 Under these regulations the licensee is supposed to ensure that contesting political parties or candidates are given equal opportunities for the broadcasting of election material. The licensee is also supposed to have an obligation to ensure that during the election period, news and current affairs programmes relating to an election are presented in a balanced, fair, complete and accurate manner. The licensee is also supposed to allocate four hours of available purchasable time during an election period for election advertisements that must be distributed equally to interested contesting political parties and candidates and must take into consideration the number of constituencies the party is contesting. However, the cost of such advertising is prohibitive41, even though it is it is slightly less than the normal charge. As the licensee must not broadcast any election programme that incites or perpetuates hatred against or vilifies any group or person on the basis of their political affiliation, it would be able to reject advertising material on this basis. These regulations appear better on paper than they do in practice. Certainly, the MDC now has the rare opportunity to flight advertisements and party political broadcasts in the state media. However, this concession has been subject to the whim of government and has been made only a few weeks prior to the election, This is not conducive to a democratic election. A more serious criticism lies in the state’s brazen and unabashed use of the state media for ZANU (PF) party political purposes. The coverage given to political parties is heavily biased and skewed in favour of the ruling party. Tuning into any ZTV news broadcast in the pre election week evidences this. Were it not for the ZTV icon announcing that the programme was intended to be the main news of the day, one could be excused for believing that one was watching a ZANU (PF) party political broadcast. For example, the 8.00pm “News” on 28/03/05 featured 30 minutes of local Zimbabwean news. This consisted of film clips of 5 ZANU (PF) candidates in different areas 42 vilifying the MDC as sell-outs and stooges for a British-inspired neo-colonial project, 3 minutes footage of dubious quality of a rally addressed by the opposition leader, and 3 minutes of the vice president commissioning a rural electrification project, making a total of 27 minutes for ZANU (PF) campaigning under the guise of news, and 3 minutes for the opposition. The Media Monitoring Project of Zimbabwe (MMPZ), which monitors broadcasts in Zimbabwe 24 hours a day, indicated as follows in its weekly report of 18/03/05: 33 (83%) of the 40 stories that ZBH (ZTV, Radio Zimbabwe and Power FM) carried on 40 Broadcasting Services (Access to radio and television during an Election) Statutory Instrument 22 of 2005. 41 The cost for television advertising will be $3,78 million per minute and $1, 89 million for half aminute. On the prime radio station it will be $1,4 million per minute and 700 000 for half a minute. 42 Curiously, footage of a cheering dancing crowd was identical for two different candidates. 16