Malanding, I am not aware that any opposition party has ever made attempt to establish a radio station. At least, I am quite sure that PDOIS has not established one. The cost of running a radio station would require substantial means of finance which we do not have at the moment. Section 208 of the Constitution states: "All state owned newspapers, journals, radio and television shall afford fair opportunities and facilities for the presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinion." The only attempt that has been made to respect this provision is to broadcast the proceedings of the National Assembly where all the four political parties are represented. Other than that, the State media gives more coverage to President Jammeh and his ruling party. There have been some attempts by political parties to call for a multiparty conference to set up certain yardsticks for democratic governance such as right to equal access to the public media by political parties. Although this did not materialise, a forum has been created by the IEC for dialogue between the different parties. The issue of equal coverage by the national media of party activities is certain to come to the fore. It is our duty to put more pressure for an opening up of the public media. In Senegal, the opposition parties did ultimately succeed in getting greater access to public media space after strenuous efforts for the opening up of the public media. In The Gambia, it is only the Independent radio stations, like Radio One FM which is giving equal access to political parties. However, its coverage is not national in scope. ON AIR TIME DURING CAMPAIGN PERIODS The laws on elections do establish what is know as a campaign period. Section 93 of the Elections Decree states that: "(1) The Commission shall, during an election campaign period, ensure that equal air time is given to each candidate and national party on the public radio and television. "(2) The Commission shall, in compliance with subsection (1), determine the time to be allocated to each candidate and political party per day or such other period as the Commission may consider reasonable, taking into account the number of candidates and political parties making a request under subsection (3)." I am quite sure that the opposition parties will not compromise on these laws in the next coming elections. I hope I have answered your questions. Greetings. Halifa Sallah. ----- Original Message ----- From: Malanding S. Jaiteh <[log in to unmask]> To: <[log in to unmask]> Sent: Friday, September 01, 2000 5:02 PM Subject: some follow-up to Mr Makaveli's questions > Perhaps Mr. Halifa Sallah could help answer these questions as well. > > Has opposition parties in the past tried to establish their own radio > station? If they did what was or still is the main reason for not having > one? Are their any regulation(s) requiring GRTS to provide equal access and > coverage time to opposition political activities? If so has the opposition > gone to the courts to enforce such regulation(s)? > > Malanding ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface ----------------------------------------------------------------------------