Organizing an election entails a constant process of communication. One of the most useful and effective forms of communication is consultation between the EMB and other stakeholders.
Key stakeholders in relation to the media role in elections include the following:
- The electoral management body itself.
- The media, including both editors and senior management, and ordinary journalists.
- Political parties and candidates.
- Non-governmental organizations, especially those responsible for defending media freedom or monitoring media output.
- Representatives of voters themselves, such as community organizations.
Here are two examples of how stakeholder consultations might work in practice.
Before the Tanzanian parliamentary elections of 2000, the Media Council convened a meeting of media, journalists, non-governmental groups concerned with media freedom and the national electoral commission. This gathering drew up a code of conduct for media coverage of the elections. The media Council and other NGOs then organized a media monitoring project that was aimed at determining how far the media complied with the code of conduct. It reported regularly throughout the campaign, before issuing a final report after the elections.
The final report was only released after a further consultation, involving all the same stakeholders, along with political parties and candidates. The monitoring findings were thoroughly debated and the code of conduct evaluated, with lessons drawn for future elections.
Before the Zimbabwean elections of 2002, the Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe convened a stakeholder consultation to try to develop proposals for a system of direct access by political parties to the media. Media, political parties, the EMB and NGOs were invited, along with many community organizations such as residents’ associations and trade unions. The meeting was widely attended – but unfortunately not by the EMB or by the ruling party. MMPZ had developed a paper offering a series of options for different possible direct access systems. These were thoroughly debated and a set of proposals finally agreed by consensus. In this case, however, the absence of the EMB and one of the main political parties meant that the proposals could not be adopted.
