Access to the state media by political parties never fails to become a major political issue during the campaign period preceding general elections in Guyana. It is a microcosm of the broader issue of media freedom in Guyana which includes the tradition of strict government control over the state-owned media. Not surprisingly, this issue assumes considerably greater poignancy during elections campaigns, when media access becomes a matter of heightened political significance.
What has usually been at the centre of the elections-time controversy in Guyana, is the reluctance of the incumbent political party to concede what its opponents consider to be adequate election-time access to the state-owned media. Arrangements that purport to seek to find such a formula have usually not worked. The problems that arise in pursuit of such a formula, and these problems, incidentally, are not unique to Guyana, are twofold. First, the search for such a formula is usually hindered by the substantive reluctance of the political party in office to surrender such campaign advantage as derives from control of the state media. Secondly, whatever the formula that is eventually arrived at, it invariably still leaves the government in a position of advantage and the opposition in a state of brooding acceptance of that formula since the incumbent, by virtue of its substantive control of the state media, still retains a considerable measure of editorial control over what is aired or printed in the state media by its political opponents.
Control over the state media also allows the government to find ways of disseminating messages, which are usually passed off as routine programming or reporting but which are, in fact, thinly disguised political messages, designed to buttress its elections campaign. Whether there is anything that can be done about what is in fact an inherent advantage of incumbency is debatable.
There have been cases, in Guyana and elsewhere, where elaborate Codes of Conduct for the state media during campaign periods that are agreed upon by all the political parties still leave the government in a position of considerable advantage. The Code of Conduct crafted prior to general elections in Zanzibar last year, for example, contains a number of seemingly generous commitments to fair and equitable access to the state media by all of the contesting political parties. The key clause in the Code, however, allowed “state media organs” (which, of course, are managed by functionaries who are subject to the direction of the government) the right to “ensure that reports…are not slanderous, adhere to professional journalism standards, are both new and true and are attractive and correct.” Therein, of course, lies sufficient latitude to hand those in control of the state media opportunities for censorship.
Just over a year ago, in January 2010, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) felt compelled to issue a statement pronouncing on the “extreme partisanship” of the state media during the period leading to general elections in Sri Lanka including the cancellation by the Elections Commis-sioner of the mandate of the “competent authority” designated to monitor compliance by the state media with basic norms of “fairness” during the elections campaign. Here was a case, the IFJ felt, where official intervention had conspired to set aside a previously agreed set of arrangements designed to create a behavioural framework for the state media during an elections campaign. Again, the Sri Lanka case, according to the IFJ, provided an option, albeit a crude one, for government to assert its control of the state media.
Over time, we in Guyana have not succeeded in slaying the ghost of controversy over the role of the state media in general elections campaigns. In fact, if only because of the continual enhancement of both the technological sophistication and reach of the media resources available to the state, the issue has now become one of considerably greater political significance. With one political party, the Alliance For Change (AFC) already having staged a public protest over the rejection of an advertisement by the National Communications Network (NCN) even before the campaign season has moved into high gear, we can probably anticipate that as the demand for opposition party access to the state media grows, so too, the controversy will grow.
As the present situation stands the PPP/C clearly holds the whip hand as far as access to the state media for the purpose of the general elections campaign is concerned. In this regard, Its presidential candidate, Mr. Donald Ramotar, enjoys a distinct advantage over his political rivals in terms of media access not only because the government controls several media houses including the country’s only radio station – which, of course means that Mr. Ramotar can literally create ‘news’ that will be dutifully reported by the state media – but also, because, having recently become a fixture in most public appearances by President Jagdeo, he now benefits from an even higher level of media limelight since presidential assignments generally attract the widest cross-section of media coverage. None of the other presidential candidates can hope to enjoy that level of exposure to the media.
No one, of course, can rightfully deny Mr. Ramotar those kinds of campaign fruit that derive from his party’s incumbency. However, there remains the deeper, more fundamental question of the government’s attitude to surrendering a modicum of state media access to its political opponents without which questions will arise about the fairness of the electoral process. In this context it is instructive to draw attention to the PPP’s own sustained protestations during its tenure in opposition regarding its lack of access to the state media, in support of its challenges to the legitimacy of the electoral process.
Does the PPP/C’s current posture on opposition access to the state media during elections campaigns not now make a mockery of its own protestations while in opposition and does that posture not now raise equally legitimate questions regarding its commitment to a fair electoral process?
If charges of rigged elections here in Guyana and elsewhere have traditionally focused on instances of blatant cheating including the ‘stuffing’ and hijacking of ballot boxes and voter intimidation, the more contemporary measuring rods for determining the fairness or otherwise of electoral processes must of necessity include access to the state media given the huge advances in the power of the media in this the Information Technology age and the considerable extent to which political parties have come to depend on those media in their elections campaign pursuits. That is not a matter that the ruling party can wish away or, for that matter, take lightly, in its contemplation of the issue of opposition access to the state media and the implications of such access for the eventual assessment of the fairness or otherwise of the 2011 general elections.
