President Hipolito Mejia, speaking during the National Dialogue forum last night at the PUCMM auditorium, said he supports the notion of the Central Electoral Board (JCE) assuming control of the national media, by imposing one national broadcast. Mejia said the goal would be to avoid that any one party ?declare itself the winner before time.? The unified media broadcast was abandoned for the 1996 Presidential election. Mejia told his audience that if all the parties use their media to cover the election, ?chaos and disorder will take control of the election,? as reported in El Caribe.
The JCE is meeting today to decide on the issue. For his part, Monsignor Agripino Nunez Collado rejected the idea, saying it would be ?a step backward.? Alfonso Abreu Collado, spokesman for Participacion Ciudadana, the civic movement that will have 6,500 observers monitoring the election, similarly disapproved of the proposal to silence the media.
El Caribe newspaper says that obliging the media to join the governmental chain to prevent someone from violating the Electoral Law is like prohibiting the sale and use of matches to prevent a madman from starting a fire. ?The JCE needs to understand that attempts to control information make fertile ground for misinformation and the spreading of rumors. The plurality of voices and various media is the best guarantee that the correct, complete, proven and timely information is made available.? The newspaper says imposing a unified broadcast is an attack of the citizens? rights to be well informed and freedom of expression.