Two licences were handed late Thursday: one to a company owned by a vocal supporter of Mugabe, the other to a state-run media group regarded as his mouthpiece.

"Yesterday's granting of the two licences is the final nail in the coffin of media plurality in Zimbabwe. It is unacceptable," Tsvangirai's spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said.

the announcement "is a farce that flies in the face of true media reforms and media plurality in Zimbabwe," he added.

The Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ), whose membership has been the subject of a fierce dispute between the president and the prime minister, granted the licences to Zimpapers and AB Communications.

Zimpapers publishes The Herald newspaper, a media vehicle for Mugabe's ZANU-PF party, while AB communications is owned by Mugabe backer Supa Mandiwanzira.

Mandiwanzira, once a journalist on state television, is now a businessman with close ties to ZANU-PF. Tamborinyoka said he had been mooted as a ZANU-PF parliamentary candidate.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai had agreed to name new members to the BAZ, but Thursday's announcement came before the changes were made, the spokesman said.

Media in Zimbabwe have operated under strict rules for the last decade, with several newspapers forced to shut down while local journalists and foreign correspondents have been harassed and deported by police.

Media reform remains one of the key disagreements between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, who accuses the 87-year-old of riding roughshod over reforms agreed to in their ruling unity pact.

The country's state-run media were key propaganda tools in the flawed 2008 polls, with Tsvangirai subject to regular attacks before the pair formed their tense power-sharing partnership in 2009.

"The radio licences given through the partisan BAZ were predictable. It was clear that the licences would be given to ZANU-PF apologists," said Douglas Mwonzora, spokesman for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change.

"The BAZ is clearly an illegitimate body, it must be reconstituted. Clearly the airwaves have not been freed, this has maintained ZANU-PF's grip on the broadcasting sector," he told AFP.

Zimpapers are set to operate Zimpapers Talk Radio while AB Communications will open Zi Radio in the next six months.

They will be the first private radio stations in Zimbabwe, which has no independent television and bans foreign journalists from permanent work.

Several radio stations such as Voice of America and Radio Voice of the People broadcast into Zimbabwe via shortwave, but do not operate from the country.

Voice of the People, one of the unsuccessful applicants, has also seen its offices bombed.

Tabani Moyo, an advocacy officer for the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), said the licences will not change government's hold on the media.

"The licensing of Zimpapers Talk Radio is set to raise eyebrows on whether the radio station will truly be independent... considering that the government has a controlling stake in Zimpapers," Moyo said.

"Former broadcast journalist, Supa Mandiwanzira, who was taken to task over his alleged links with ZANU-PF, is the majority shareholder and CEO of Zi fm stereo under the AB Communications stable."

Moyo said the awards were set to "question the sincerity of government's calls for Zimbabwean journalists manning foreign-based stations to return home and legalise their operations".

In a statement the MDC-T dismissed the awarding of two free to air licences by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) to Zimpapers and Supa Mandiwanzira's AB Communications as a political farce.

MDC-T says the granting of these licences was clearly predictable and is nothing but a desperate attempt by Zanu PF to tighten its grip on the airwaves and closing the space for genuine independent broadcasters.

The awards have been made only to those organisations linked to Zanu PF. MDC-T says it is dismayed that the country's airwaves remain shackled with a shameful monopoly by Zanu PF.

It says its position is that the re-appointment of Zanu PF apologist, Tafataona Mahoso as the chairperson of BAZ by the Minister of Media Information and Publicity, Webster Shamu was designed to ensure that these licenses were not fairly awarded.

MDC-T demand that BAZ be urgently re-constituted so that Zimbabwe has genuine independent broadcasters not Zanu PF sympathisers. It added that the situation that Zimbabwe is in does not advance media freedom.

"The shameful monopoly by Zanu PF of the country's airwaves should be stopped and the airwaves liberalised," added MDC-T.

The satellite dishes that perch on almost every house in the urban areas and even thatched huts in our villages and farms are a major indictment on the Zimbabwe's broadcasting industry.

"Zimbabweans need a plural and diverse media so that the hard-working citizens of this country can make well – informed choices," concluded the statement. 

A coalition deal with the former opposition in 2009 called for an end to the three-decade monopoly of Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. No commercial broadcast licenses have been issued since independence from colonial-era rule in 1980.

MDC on Friday described the licensing decisions as an unacceptable betrayal of the power sharing deal.

“This is a sad day for the media and showcases the brazen and deliberate undermining” of Tsvangirai’s authority in the coalition, his spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka said.

ZiFM is owned by a media firm headed by Supa Mandiwanzira, also a one-time journalist and presenter at state television. Mandiwanzira was named by Mugabe’s party as a likely parliamentary candidate for elections proposed next year, Tamborinyoka said.

Zimbabwe Newspapers is a private company listed on the Harare stock exchange, but the government has owned the majority stockholding since the 1980s when Mugabe’s party took a tight rein on its journalists.

The southern Africa media institute, which campaigns for media freedoms, said the legal status of the new licenses was in doubt. It cited irregularities in the appointment of the board of the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe, the body that issued the licenses.

The board is chaired by Tafataona Mahoso, former head of the state media commission that enforced draconian media curbs before the formation of the coalition between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. Zimbabwe’s government coalition was formed after violent and disputed elections in 2008.

For nearly a decade, Mahoso was widely described by critics as Mugabe’s media “hatchet man.”

The independent Harare-based Voluntary Media Council of Zimbabwe said Friday the selection of just two of several wide-ranging applications for private broadcasting licenses was not carried out transparently and broadcast laws governing the powers and membership of the authority weighing in Mugabe’s favor needed reform.

“Until we have an independent broadcasting authority and democratic broadcast laws we will continue to have this sort of conflict,” said Takura Zhangazha, head of the council

By SAPA