A few weeks ago, I argued that when considering manifesto commitments one needs to be aware of, among other things, the disconnect that sometimes exists between those promises and reality. The manifesto that brought the PPP/C to government in 1992, made the following promise:
“The PPP/CIVIC holds strongly to the view that free mass media are indispensable to democratization and development. In the process of reconstruction and the development of a pluralist democracy, free media will facilitate wide and open debate on the choice of path for recovery, and will promote involvement of the people and their creative thinking in the process of development. Under a PPP/CIVIC Administration a free and democratic media policy will mean:
● no Government or State monopoly over the media;
● adequate coverage and prominence for Government’s views, news and information;
● a guarantee of private ownership in keeping with a pluralist democracy and freedom of the media;
● opening the media to different shades of opinion;
● making the state-owned media autonomous with a management board comprising representatives of political parties, trade unions, religious and socio-economic groups;
● establishment of an independent broad-based Publications and Broadcasting Authority which will propose standards in keeping with journalistic ethics, balance and fairness;
● support for the media to access modern technology, and promotion of journalistic training and professionalism; and
● encouragement of local regional television programming that will help to protect and promote our cultural heritage.”
It is now well accepted that without a free, fair media pluralist, competitive democracy is not possible and this has been underlined in the decisions of numerous international tribunals. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression has elaborated a series of steps that governments should take to guarantee freedom of media, particularly during elections. These include independent media authority, freedom from censorship, freedom from arbitrary attack or interference, free access to necessary information and a plurality of voices in the media. According to the Rapporteur, in order to ensure that the publicly-funded media are not in practice government-controlled, state-owned media have a responsibility to report on all aspects of national life and to provide access to a diversity of viewpoints. “State-owned media must not be used as a communication or propaganda organ for one political party or as an advocate for the Government to the exclusion of all other parties and groups” (Rapporteur 1999 Report).
A report on the media and elections went a bit further, claiming that: “if the media coverage in the press and on television is not free and fair, the results may be prejudiced to an extent that the elections as a whole, even if the formal process of voting has been organised correctly, may be judged not to have been free and fair.” (Bernd-Peter Lange & David Ward ed. (2004) “The Media and Elections: A Handbook and Comparative Study” Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).
Yet, as Mr. Corbin reminded us recently, more than a decade on, the PPP/C’s manifesto promise had not been fulfilled and as a result, in 2003, he signed a communiqué with President Jagdeo to the effect that: “The two Leaders also came to the agreement that equitable access to the State Owned Media should be established immediately and an independent National Broadcast Authority should be realized within three months.” And nearly another decade since then, there is still no equitable access to the state media and hotly contested legislation providing for the establishment of an independent national broadcasting authority has only just been passed by the National Assembly.
The most recent ban on CN Sharma’s Channel 6 is but the latest in this blatant and persistent disconnect between theory and reality in an area so crucial to a democratic polity by people who never tire of proclaiming their commitment to and their role in returning “democracy” to Guyana. How can this be explained? In my view, history, ideological orientation and the ethnic nature of our society all combine to stymie our democratic development and participation.
Very briefly, whether or not the PPP, by its own perceived reckless commitment to communism in the era of “containment”, brought the level of media hostility that it faced in the 50s and 60s upon itself is not relevant here. What is beyond doubt is that the news media of the era were extremely hostile to it. Added to this, between 1973 and 1980, the PNC government gained control of 90% of the mass media, so that in 1980, the US State Department reported that “Although the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech, press, religion and assembly, the past two years have witnessed a significant curtailment of those rights by the government. The daily press and local radio are government owned and serve as organs of the ruling party.”
Marxism/Leninism, to which the PPP has been committed for decades, is an illiberal tradition that seeks, by whatever means, to maintain perennial political authority in the interest of the working class and building a communist society. When all of this is adjoined to the ethnic suspicion and fear and the usual self-interest and intrigues of political elites, particularly those who have been in office for long periods, the struggle to build a liberal democratic society, though necessary, must be an uphill one.
In many negative and differing ways, our history, ideology and ethnic divisions combine to stifle our developmental process and are the fundamental reason why we need political change and the introduction of a shared government regime type.
More specifically, although an appropriate legal and administrative framework for the distribution of access to the state media during the coming election campaign is not yet in place, to add legitimacy to the electoral process, some ad hoc arrangement could be created to make such equitable access immediately available.
henryjeffrey@yahoo.com
