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(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE) Zanu PF political ads target Tsvangirai

COMMENT - From Amai Jukwa's channel on Youtube

(YOUTUBE) Mugabe Says No To Violence

(YOUTUBE) Tsvangirai Must Respect Women

Zanu PF political ads target Tsvangirai
13/03/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

In the last election, President Barack Obama and his rival Mitt Romney’s campaigns are believed to have spent up to US$1.1 billion on political ads.

With the growth of Twitter, Facebook and other social networking sites, the adverts were not just limited to television alone but were omnipresent in all spheres of life.

Ahead of general elections in Zimbabwe later this year, all the main parties have increased their presence online, targeting not just the voters in Zimbabwe lucky enough to have access to the internet, but also seeking to sell their vision to the world.

Campaigning has not started, because the election date is not yet known, but MDC-T secretary general Tendai Biti said recently that he expects the campaign to have a “cerebral component, a thinking component”.

He had no doubt, he said, “that in this election Zanu PF are going to try and be smarter than 2008 when they were crude, predatory and extractive” by focusing their campaign on issues.

If a new internet advertising blitz by Zanu PF supporters targeting MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai is anything to go by, then Biti is right on the money.

A Zanu PF-supporting polemicist, known online as Mai Jukwa, and who has drawn a sizeable following, this week released three attack ads all critical of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

In an e-mailed response, Amai Jukwa insisted the ads were a creation of “surrogates standing of our own accord”, adding: “Zanu PF is not responsible.”

The strategy appears to follow the American super PACs – political action committees allowed to raise and spend millions of dollars on advocacy programmes for candidates, but independent of the official campaigns.

Two of the adverts posted on YouTube and Facebook portray Tsvangirai as pro-same sex marriages and lacking respect for women in the wake of his amorous adventures.

A third portrays Zanu PF leader Robert Mugabe as a man of peace, juxtaposed with a video of the former MDC-T legislator Roy Bennet punching Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa in Parliament, and a brutal assault on the former MDC MP Trudy Stevenson, allegedly by Tsvangirai’s supporters.

Zanu PF may have fired the first salvo, but it could just be the beginning of a season of negative campaigns.

[How is telling the truth negative? - MrK]

Labels: 2013 ELECTIONS (ZW), ADVERTISING, TENDAI BITI

posted by MrK @ 1:05 PM