ZESN Report on the 31 July 2013 Harmonised Elections Civic Education Trust, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Collaborators’ Association, Zimbabwe Reveal Generations Trust and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN).43 Unfortunately however, this accreditation came too late for these organizations to educate voters effectively about the mobile voter registration and special voting exercise. Unlike previous elections, the 2013 harmonized elections witnessed the introduction of the proportional representation system for some seats in the National Assembly, for the Senate and for eight of the country’s 10 provinces. For example, in this election voters no longer directly voted for senators as they did in the 2008 elections. These constitute significant changes and there was a need to explain these new provisions. Media Coverage44 One of the key reform areas of the GPA was the area of media diversity, specifically the liberalisation of broadcasting to include new players. While there is some variety in the daily and weekly newspaper business, most newspapers display various degrees of partisan reporting. The state controlled publications tend to report favourably on ZANU-PF and negatively on other parties. The opposite is true of the private print media that favour the MDCs and other parties that are not ZANU-PF. The state owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) operates four radio stations and two television channels, ZTV 1 and ZTV 2, all displaying virulent and undisguised bias in favour of ZANU-PF. Until 19 July there were no privately owned television stations in Zimbabwe. Formerly, Zimbabweans used to watch South African television channels through the Wiztech satellite decoders, but this signal was scrambled in June. Zimbabwe also has access to international news channels through digital satellite television (DSTV), at a high cost which the majority of citizens cannot afford. On 19 July an independent TV channel, 1st TV, was launched. The station broadcasts free-to-air programmes through the Wiztech decoders and on the DSTV platform, as well as online. George Charamba, President Mugabe’s spokesman, threatened to ‘cripple’ the “pirate” station45 in violation of section 61 (1a) of the new Constitution, which states that “every person has the right to freedom of 43 ‘No Extension to Voter Registration’ http://www.chronicle.co.zw/no-extension-to-voterregistration/available<http://www.chronicle.co.zw/no-extension-to-voter-registration/> 44 ZESN attributes this section to MISA Zimbabwe and the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe (MMPZ). 45 ‘Government plans to cripple new TV station’ available at <http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-11749-Govtper cent20toper cent20per centE2per cent80per cent98crippleper centE2per cent80per cent99per cent20newper cent20TVper cent20station/news.aspx> 44 | P a g e