=LPEDEZH ,QWURGXFWLRQ When President Robert Mugabe officially opened the Fifth Session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe in November 2012, expectations were high that he would outline a legislative agenda that would address the envisaged media, electoral and security reforms necessary for the staging of elections whose outcome would be universally accepted. These expectations were justified in the context of the insistence by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) mediation team led by South Africa president, Jacob Zuma, that these reforms be undertaken before the staging of 2013 elections as agreed to in terms of the Global Political Agreement (GPA), signed four years earlier. This is critical to note given SADC’s insistence on key reforms and that this would be the last session of Parliament before the much-anticipated 2013 elections and more so were it pertains to the envisaged media reforms. However, that was not to be, notwithstanding the fact that on 13 July 2010, president Mugabe announced during the opening of 3rd Session of the 7th Parliament of Zimbabwe that the Media Practitioners’ Bill, which had been on 6R7KLVLV'HPRFUDF\" the cards for more than a year following recommendations of the All Media Stakeholders Conference held in Kariba (northern Zimbabwe) in May 2009, would be among 23 Bills constituting the legislative agenda of parliament. He said then that the Media Practitioners Bill would seek to “repeal the part of the Access to Information and the Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA), which deals with the registration of journalists and privacy issues”. President Mugabe, however, made no reference to the Media Practitioners Bill nor the expected repeal or amendment of repressive laws such as AIPPA, Broadcasting Services Act, Public Order and Security Act (POSA) and the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act which pose serious hindrances to media freedom, freedom of expression and access to information. There was also no movement pertaining to the tabling of the Freedom of Information Bill, which then deputy minister of Information, Jameson Timba, promised way back in 2010. The closest there was to the proposed Bill was through a draft Private Members Bill presented to stakeholders by Member of Parliament, Settlement Chikwinya. However, the draft was widely con-