NBC axes free election airtime

AN attempt by the Congress of Democrats and Rally for Democracy and Progress to get the High Court to order the Namibian Broadcasting Corporation to provide equal free airtime to political parties’ campaign messages backfired on Friday, when the NBC instead decided to cancel the free election broadcasts altogether.

In an urgent application that was set to be heard in the High Court late on Friday afternoon, the CoD and RDP wanted the court to order the NBC to allocate an equal amount of time to the election campaign messages of political parties taking part in the presidential and National Assembly elections on November 27 and 28. The public broadcaster has been airing campaign messages from political parties on its television and radio services since last week Monday.Faced with the legal action against it, the NBC however pulled the carpet from under the two political parties’ feet by deciding to do away with the free election message broadcasts – with the result that the issue that prompted the legal action against the NBC fell away, and with it also the case against the broadcaster.The CoD and RDP are claiming that the NBC’s allocation of time to political parties is unfair and has the effect of being biased in favour of the ruling party, Swapo.The NBC’s free airtime policy was that 40 per cent of the time that was made available to parties for campaign broadcasts was divided equally among the 14 parties contesting the National Assembly election this year. The other 60 per cent of the free airtime was divided proportionally among the nine political parties that also contested the 2004 national elections, with the amount of time on air made available to these parties divided according to the share of the vote they received five years ago.The effect of this was that Swapo received most of the free airtime, at the expense of new parties on the political scene and other parties that were beaten by the ruling party in the 2004 polls.In practice the division of airtime according to the formula the NBC was using meant that Swapo was to receive a five-minute time slot on television each evening from October 26 to November 24.Parties making their national election debut this year, like the RDP, the All People’s Party, the Democratic Party of Namibia and the Communist Party, were allocated a one-and-a-half minute time slot only every fifth day during this period. Among the parties that took part in the 2004 elections, the CoD received the biggest time slot of three minutes and fifty seconds, also every fifth day, the DTA was allocated three minutes and twenty seconds every fifth day, and Nudo was given three minutes every fifth day.The acting Director General of the NBC, Matthew //Gowaseb, told The Namibian on Saturday that the public broadcaster was not obliged to provide free time on air to the parties contesting the 2009 elections.If political parties now want to have campaign messages aired on the NBC, they would have to pay for it like normal advertisements, he said.It is unfortunate that with the scrapping of the free allocation of airtime smaller political parties will be losing some of the exposure they have been receiving through the campaign message broadcasts, he commented.//Gowaseb said as a news organisation the NBC would be doing what it is supposed to do, which is to present to its listeners and viewers what is happening on the ground in the current election campaign.The NBC will be continuing to cover the election campaign as news, and its policy to cover six party rallies and two presidential candidate rallies of each party remains in place, //Gowaseb said.In addition to covering such campaign events, it is also part of the NBC’s election coverage policy that coverage would be given to all meetings addressed by President Hifikepunye Pohamba. The serving Head of State is also Swapo’s candidate in the presidential election.CoD spokesperson Natjirikasorua Tjirera commented yesterday that the cancellation of the free election campaign broadcasts was an unfortunate step.He added, though, that his party believes that the NBC was supposed to allocate the free airtime equally among all parties. ‘We believe it’s either equality or nothing,’ Tjirera said.He said although a court order directing the NBC to provide equal airtime to all parties was not achieved, his party is actually pleased with the outcome of the case.’Now the State broadcaster won’t be used for the benefit of one party alone,’ Tjirera said.The case had been set to be heard by Acting Judge Nixon Marcus. Elia Shikongo represented the NBC and Hannchen Schneider-Waterberg, instructed by Francois Erasmus & Partners, represented the CoD and RDP.