Sierra Leone’s elections, the second vote since the West African country emerged from one of the most brutal wars in modern history, has sparked a new battle for the airwaves.
Days after accusing the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) of broadcasting post-election hate messages on its Rising Sun Radio, the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) this week conducted a test transmission for its own radio station.
SLPP spokesperson Victor Reider said Unity Radio was in no way aimed at countering the opposition radio, which hit the airwaves about a month ago.
”The idea has been on the books for a while. We need our own mouthpiece through which can communicate to our people,” Reider said.
The SLPP radio joins Sierra Leone’s already crowded airwaves. From just two radio stations in 1996, the country now boasts of 50 FM stations, the majority of them privately owned.
Information Minister Septimus Kaikai told Agence France-Presse that the government opened the media space ”to promote democracy and good governance where people can express themselves, it’s a fundamental human right”.
The country of 5,5-million people has also seen a proliferation of newspapers. From a handful in 1996, there are now 54 registered newspapers, practically all of which are privately owned.
While such phenomenal media growth may be normal in post-conflict situations, the tightly contested presidential and legislative elections, whose results are still anxiously awaited by a country desperate for change, have brought media freedom under the spotlight.
”This is the first litmus test as to whether democracy and the good governance we are talking about is going to blossom in an environment where people take advantage of freedom of information and use radio to create chaos and mayhem in the country,” said Bernadette Cole, head of the country’s Independent Media Commission (IMC), which licenses the media.
”There was risk of it being abused,” she said.
A day after elections, the main opposition APC started to claim victory, alleging vote-rigging was under way, but it has in recent days toned down its statements.
The IMC and a United Nations-backed media monitoring team have been going round appealing to radio stations to soften their stances.
”The way radio was used by the APC party … was really a threat to the peace, unity and cohesion which we are enjoying. We nipped it in the bud, and I think the worst is over, at least from them,” said Cole.
APC’s radio manager Dennis Smith said criticism of his station was not conducive to reconciliation.
The elections also saw about 20 radio stations scattered across the country also join forces under a so-called Independent Radio Network (IRN), to relay live newscasts on voting day.
Using reporters of the various community and regional radios, the IRN has been issuing unofficial results as posted at various polling centres where vote-counting was conducted.
Cole boasts that Sierra Leone has a long history of press freedom.
”We were the first African country in which a newspaper was established in 1801 by the British colonialists and the first printing press in African was set up in Sierra Leone in 1801. The first radio station in British West Africa was set up in Sierra Leone in 1934,” she said. — Sapa-AFP