Following the announcement today of the electoral victory in Mozambique of incumbent President Joaquim Chissano and the ruling party FRELIMO, ARTICLE 19 and the Mozambique Human Rights League (LDH) have published a joint report commending the publicly-owned media in Mozambique for an overall improvement in the balance and impartiality of its coverage during the December […]
Following the announcement today of the electoral victory in Mozambique of incumbent President Joaquim Chissano and the ruling party FRELIMO, ARTICLE 19 and the Mozambique Human Rights League (LDH) have published a joint report commending the publicly-owned media in Mozambique for an overall improvement in the balance and impartiality of its coverage during the December 1999 elections as compared with the 1994 elections. However, the report points to a continuing “Frelimo-mindedness” in the publicly-owned media, particularly in newspapers such as Noticias and Domingo. In their report, the two organisations argue that the most fundamental impediment to a level electoral playing field this time around has been the ruling party’s ability to raise much greater funds for its campaign than its opponents, including through harnessing state resources.
Andrew Puddephatt, Executive Director of ARTICLE 19, said:
“We have noted a real improvement in the performance of the publicly-owned media over the last five years, but continuing FRELIMO influence over it and the lack of transparency about how parties raise their campaign funds remain obstacles to fully free and fair elections in Mozambique. We urge the new government to tackle these areas as soon as possible.”
While commending the overall impartiality and fairness of the performance of the National Electoral Commission (CNE), the ARTICLE 19/LDH report also call for its “depoliticisation” in future. Currently it is dominated by representatives of political parties. ARTICLE 19 and LDH point out in their report that issues such as transparency about party funding are unlikely to be properly addressed by the CNE if it is dominated by political parties.
The report makes a number of recommendations to further improve public media coverage of elections. These include establishing independent management boards in the public broadcast media and the genuine privatisation of Noticias and Domingo, currently owned by parastatals. It also suggests ways to improve openness on party funding, for example, through legislation to compel political parties to publish annual accounts, setting up an independent body to which the parties should declare their assets and donations, and the introduction of freedom of information legislation.
The ARTICLE 19/LDH report is based on the findings of their joint project to monitor the publicly-owned media during the electoral campaign in Mozambique. Weekly reports produced by the project are available from both organizations.
