The findings by the European Union Observer Mission, National Democratic Institute, African Union and SADC observer missions, are therefore not new at all, but compel the transformation of these entities. The African Union Election Observer Mission (in its preliminary report), noted that it had in the past recommended for measures to be undertaken to guarantee equal access to the state broadcaster to all contestants during elections and for the full implementation of the Broadcasting Services Act (BSA) to ensure balanced and pluralistic media. “Regrettably, these recommendations were not implemented. The media environment still remains largely polarised,” AUEOM noted. The observer missions generally noted that the state media failed to abide by its legal obligations to ensure equitable and fair treatment of all political parties and candidates and was “heavily biased” in favour of the incumbent president (Mnangagwa) in their election related coverage. In its 2018 Media Complaints Analysis Report, the self-regulatory body, Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe (VMCZ), said section 11 of its Code of Conduct on reporting on elections, was the most breached in 2018. ❖ Broadcasting/Telecommunications/ICTs The script almost remained unchanged concerning the broadcasting sector in Zimbabwe saves for statements of intent pertaining to the envisaged reforms. For instance as of December 2018, the government was still to license a single community radio station, 17 odd years after enactment of BSA, which provides for community radios. In 2018 the government announced that it had approved the merging of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) and the Postal and Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (POTRAZ). This announcement was made by then Permanent Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services, George Charamba. He was speaking after an inspection of the proposed Maphisa digital broadcasting transmission site on 26 April 2018. Currently, BAZ is responsible mainly for broadcasting related affairs while POTRAZ is responsible for the administration of telecommunications and internet related services. The proposed parastatal will incorporate all the areas currently covered separately by POTRAZ and the BAZ. 14