Swapo still holds a monopoly on NBC

THE NBC slightly increased its election coverage of the opposition last week – a move political analysts believe could have been motivated by the presence of international election observers.

Swapo still gets by far the lion’s share with a whopping 70 per cent, but it is down from the previous week’s 83 per cent.The Institute for Public Policy Research’s weekly monitor of TV broadcasting coverage of the elections shows that in the week of November 13 to 19, coverage of the RDP by the national broadcaster improved from eight per cent in the previous week to 12 per cent in the week under review. But opposition parties in general are still receiving minimal coverage.The IPPR also observed that on the Wednesday, November 18, the NBC gave Swapo the same amount of coverage it gave all the opposition parties combined. This could have been coincidental but on that specific day SADC election observers arrived in the country.On that day Swapo rallies got four minutes of coverage, followed by the RDP and Swanu each getting two minutes.Several opposition-related stories featured in other media did not make it onto the NBC news.Among these was a panel discussion on inequality involving most registered parties, a CoD press conference on allegations of vote rigging, a Republican Party rally at Katima Mulilo, a Nudo rally at Opuwo, an RDP press statement on comments made by Swapo Vice President Hage Geingob, a CoD rally at Katima Mulilo, an RDP rally at Ondangwa and an RDP press release on repeat voting.The monitoring has also revealed that it has become harder to distinguish between some Government events and Swapo rallies. There were two events covered on television news in the week under review which appeared to concern the launch of Government projects, but speakers wore Swapo colours and in one instance urged those attending the event to vote for Swapo.The two events were the launch of a new road in the Omusati Region and the launch of the Omuthiya hospital project.One Africa’s coverage of the election dipped to 22 minutes from 30 minutes the previous week. Swapo and the CoD were the only parties to receive dedicated items, although most of the parties were briefly featured in an item on a panel discussion about inequality.