In today’s politics and society at large, media is essential to the safeguarding transparency of democratic processes. This is often called its ‘watchdog’ role. Transparency is required on many levels including for access to information; accountability and legitimacy of individuals, institutions and processes themselves; and for rightful participation and public debate.
Transparency as required for access to information means that an electorate is provided necessary and comprehensive information so as to make informed choices as well as be able to hold officials and institutions accountable. This includes access to legal and operational proceedings as well as information about officials and institutions. Specific to elections, an EMB for example, is obligated to inform the public on their actions, decisions, and plans. Individuals appointed or elected to an EMB body are public figures who should be working in the interests of the public. As such, information regarding their affiliations, histories, and performance while in office, is to be freely accessed by the public.
Media acts as a mechanism for the prevention and investigation of allegations of violations or malpractice. This watchdog role extends from accountability of officials and their actions while ‘in office’ to entire processes. For example, media presence at voting and counting centres is critical to preventing electoral fraud, given that full measures protecting freedom of speech are guaranteed, and that media are free to act independently and with impartiality.
An election cannot be deemed democratic unless the public is fully able to participate and is unhindered in exercising choice. As such, media are vital in ensuring that there is a public, i.e. transparent, platform for debate and participation in the discussion. Candidates are to represent the public. Transparency of an election helps ensures that this indeed is so. Furthermore, transparency of individual processes (such as voting, counting, registering, candidate nomination, campaigning and so forth) further protects and enables public participation in these processes.
A poignant example, involving elections in Serbia in 2000, illustrates these key aspects of transparency:
In Serbia, several important independent media outlets contributed to the decline of Milošević’s popularity. The B-92 radio station had offered unsparing professional coverage of Milošević and his regime since 1989. B-92 cofounder Goran Matić also played an instrumental role in establishing a regional radio and television network to distribute independent news broadcasts. The ANEM network, a media cluster consisting of a news agency, several independent dailies and weeklies, and a television station, helped to give Serbians news from outside state-dominated channels. Critical coverage of Milošević’s wars, his economic policies, and his government’s violent arrests and abuses of young protestors helped to undermine his support within the population. In September 2000, independent media coverage of official vote fraud brought outraged Serbians into the streets. At the time, Milošević had closed B-92, but ANEM and Radio Index in Belgrade ensured that there was no let up in coverage. Without these media outlets, popular mobilization would have been much harder. [i]
[i] Michael McFaul, “Transitions from Postcommunism” Journal of Democracy 16 (July 2005): 11-12
