Zimbabwe’s Parliament has adjourned for the year without passing two bills seen as a bid by beleaguered President Robert Mugabe to curb media freedom and to block independent monitoring of elections next year.

“We have adjourned because the parliamentary legal committee needed more time to consider the access to information bill and the general laws amendment bill,” Information and Publicity Minister Jonathan Moyo said.

Mugabe is under growing international pressure over the violent takeover of white-owned farms by landless blacks and also faces the biggest political challenge of his 21 years in power in elections next year from the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Moyo said earlier that Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF party was eager to pass a media bill that threatened to jail journalists who violate the latest media regulations, and to bar foreign journalists from working in Zimbabwe. The Government has also proposed amendments that would ban independent election monitors and forbid private voter education.

The changes, in a general laws amendment bill, would also deny voting rights to millions of Zimbabweans abroad. As well, the parliamentary committee was considering a public order and security bill that critics say is meant to suppress opposition to Mugabe ahead of the election set for March. Paul Themba Nyathi, an MDC Member of Parliament, said the proposed laws had been attacked in debate this week. “There was an outcry. We told them [government] to go and reconsider the bills,” Nyathi said. Political analyst Lovemore Madhuku said the Government, with enough seats in Parliament to force the measures through, may have delayed to divert world attention from Zimbabwe.

Commonwealth ministers meeting in London stepped up pressure on Zimbabwe yesterday by putting it formally on their agenda the first step toward possible suspension. And in Harare, a high-level delegation from South Africa’s African National Congress was meeting with senior officials of Zanu PF to seek an “amicable solution to the Zimbabwe problem”.

“There are too many eyes on them at the moment including the ANC. They have nothing to lose by waiting for another three weeks before parliament resumes,” Madhuku said.

He added that Mugabe could also use his presidential powers to force the bills through. Under the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act, Mugabe can amend existing laws and create new ones without putting them to Parliament. Mugabe, aged 77 and in power since 1980, faces a stiff challenge at the polls from MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, whose party has gained popularity due to a political and economic crisis widely blamed on government mismanagement.

Mugabe accuses the MDC of being a puppet of his local and international opponents led by former colonial ruler Britain.