poles and were forced to recite party slogans and proclaim that President Robert Mugabe would rule in perpetuity. The organisation’s president sustained a fractured arm and deep cuts. A police spokesman issued a statement alleging that the leaders had gone to the ZANU (PF) provincial headquarters and behaved provocatively, and had thrown fliers at party members; the leaders were to be charged with disturbing the peace. The police did, however, arrest two of the ZANU (PF) supporters involved in the incident. ➢ When WOZA tried to stage a peaceful demonstration to urge better care for the nation’s children the police violently dispersed the protesters and severely beat some of the demonstrators ➢ A peaceful student demonstration was similarly broken up and the students who were arrested were severely beaten whilst in custody. This occurred with student demonstrations in both Harare and Bulawayo. ➢ MDC (Tsvangirai) has complained that in recent weeks the police have banned all rallies in Masvingo and that armed riot police broke up one of their rallies in Kadoma. Tsvangirai complained that the amendments to POSA had made no difference to the police attitude when it came to MDC rallies as they contrived to find spurious excuses to prevent them. However, it seems that political campaigning is taking place in some areas without interference. The Police Commissioner recently summed up the general attitude of the police towards demonstrations when he said: I challenge all political parties to organise rallies and meetings in accordance with the law of the land. Right now, what our people need is peace and tranquillity and not endless demonstrations, marches and processions, which waste their precious time for development. This is not the time for demonstrations and marches, but for constructive campaigning devoid of intimidation. Hardly the views of a man who was prepared to implement the new provisions of POSA. 10. Media coverage of elections The SADC election guidelines call for fair and balanced coverage of election campaigns. All political parties must be able to use the mass media to disseminate information to the electorate about their political policies in order to try to persuade voters to vote for them. Radio is a particularly important medium in this 11