According to EU EOM media monitoring findings, the state-owned media provided heavily biased coverage of the electoral process in favour of the ruling party. During the analysed period ZANUPF received a total of 84.9%, 81.8% and 76.5% of election-related coverage70 (airtime) on ZTV, Radio Zimbabwe and Classic 263, respectively. Qualitatively, 44.5%, 14.4% and 10.2% of that coverage were reports portraying ZANU-PF in a positive tone, while 47%, 20% and 26.5% of the coverage received by MDC-Alliance in the aforementioned media were reports in a negative tone. Furthermore, ZANU-PF and its presidential candidate benefited from extensive additional coverage on ZBC through news on government achievements and live broadcasting of activities conducted by Emmerson Mnangagwa as Head of State. Government-controlled newspapers The Herald, The Chronicle and The Sunday Mail also favoured overtly ZANU-PF by allocating 62.8%, 64.8% and 52.8%, respectively, of their electoral coverage to the ruling party. While 54.7% of the reports about ZANU-PF in the three newspapers were presented in a positive tone, 67.1% of the coverage received by MDC-Alliance in the referred publications portrayed the opposition party in a negative tone. Imbalances in favour of the ruling party were also observed in coverage by Star FM and ZiFM, which allocated a total of 50.8% and 42.3% of election-related airtime, respectively, to ZANU-PF and 27.3% and 31.5%, respectively, to MDC-Alliance. The tone in both radio stations was majorly neutral. Recommendation 15: ZBC needs to be reformed into a truly independent public service broadcaster and state-owned media must abide by their legal obligation to be impartial and provide equitable treatment to all political parties and candidates. In private newspapers there were imbalances in their election-related reporting in favour of the MDC-Alliance and its presidential candidate. Although the distribution of space in NewsDay, Daily News and The Standard was more balanced than in the state-controlled newspapers, the ruling party received the largest amount of news and information presented in a negative tone by the private newspapers. Specifically, 27.1% of coverage related to ZANU-PF was negative in tone in NewsDay, Daily News, The Standard and The Zimbabwe Independent, while in the same newspapers 9.5% of reports on MDC-Alliance were positive in tone. In addition, The Zimbabwe Independent allocated 52.5% of its electoral coverage to MDC-Alliance and 20.5% to ZANU-PF. ZANU-PF largely dominated advertising by political parties in the media, with 87.2%, 46.8% and 95.4% of all advertisements, spots and paid-for programmes broadcast and published on TV, radio and newspapers, respectively, during the analysed period. The Herald, The Standard and NewsDay violated the campaign silence period on 29 and 30 July by publishing some news and opinion articles that favoured both presidential candidates Emmerson Mnangagwa and Nelson Chamisa. ZEC, supported by the BAZ and the ZMC, and despite facing a number of limitations, managed to fulfil its legal mandate to monitor media from 9 July. However, ZEC was ineffective in ensuring fairness and equitable coverage by broadcasters and publishers as established in the law. The legal 70 This is coverage of the election in news, current affairs and special election-related programming. 29