By Jason McLure | Bloomberg
Ethiopia’s opposition criticized media rules that give Meles Zenawi’s ruling party and its four main allies 16 times as much airtime as the largest opposition party ahead of May 23 elections.
“In general the media is controlled, used, monopolized by the ruling party,” Negasso Gidada, a former president of Ethiopia who is now a leader of the opposition Medrek alliance, said in a phone interview yesterday. “Our stand is that the time allocation is unfair.”
The Ethiopian Broadcast Authority earlier this year awarded Meles’ Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front and four allied parties 199 hours and 15 minutes of time on state radio and 31 hours and 30 minutes on state television, according to figures from the EBA. Medrek, the country’s largest opposition grouping, was awarded 12 hours 15 minutes of radio time and 1 hour 45 minutes of television time.
“We have negotiated about this on our party council and they are not part of that council,” Hailemariam Desalegn, parliamentary whip for the EPRDF, said by phone today. “I don’t see unfairness in this issue.”
The Ethiopian government owns the only television broadcasters in the country, and the Horn of Africa nation’s radio waves are almost entirely controlled by government or ruling party-affiliated stations.
The allocation of airtime was based largely on the number of seats in parliament held by each party, according to Desta Tesfaw, director general of the broadcasting agency. A second, smaller award of airtime will be made in the coming weeks based on the number of candidates fielded by each party, he said.
‘Notable Opening’
Prior to the country’s last elections in 2005, “there was a notable opening of the state media to the political parties contesting the elections,” said a report from the European Union electoral observer mission that year.
Opposition parties won more than 170 seats in the country’s 547-member parliament in that vote, though many opposition members refused to take their seats to protest what they said was vote rigging by the ruling party in some areas.
In ensuing demonstrations, security forces loyal to Meles killed 193 people. Dozens of senior opposition figures were jailed on treason charges.
“Meles and his ruling party appear intent on preventing a repeat of the relatively open 2005 elections which produced a strong opposition showing,” Dennis Blair, the U.S. director of national intelligence, wrote in a report to the Senate on Feb. 2.