One of the fundamental decisions to be made in organizing direct access broadcasts by the parties is whether slots are to be allocated on the basis of equality or equity. Equality, clearly, means that every party or candidate gets the same access. Equity means that everyone gets fair access - the idea being that a party with large popular support should have more airtime than one that does not.
The Argument For Equality
Everyone gets an opportunity to put their point of view to the electorate. It will be the electorate that chooses, rather than a broadcaster or an electoral regulator. This is a simple system to administer and everyone can understand it. It is particularly attractive in a first democratic election when there is no sure way of knowing how much support the different parties have.
The Argument Against Equality
Equality gives a built-in advantage to the incumbent party, which has many other opportunities to convey its policies through the media. What equality does is to promote the no-hope opposition parties at the expense of those with a genuine possibility of ousting the ruling party. Equality may also mean that there is simply too much material being generated for the electorate to absorb. They will get bored and the direct access process may become a waste of time. Again this is likely to favour the incumbent.
Another argument against automatic equal access is that it will encourage frivolous candidates who are only interested in the free publicity.
The Argument For Equity
If direct access is allocated on a fair (or equitable) basis, this ensures that all parties are given an opportunity to speak to the electorate, roughly in proportion to their popular support. This means that the electorate gets to hear the arguments between the main contenders for office, while parties with less support also get a say (but a smaller one).
The Argument Against Equity
This system is an obstacle to the emergence of new parties, since it is always based on what support they achieved last time. And what if there was no last time? How is popular support determined in a first democratic election? The system could thus be open to abuse.
And the Answer?
There is no right or wrong answer to this problem, as can be seen by the variety of solutions in both well-established and new democracies. But the different approaches may suit different political systems better. Here are some further considerations:
- Equality may work better when there are fewer parties or candidates. When there are too many then the 'cake' may have to be cut into impossibly tiny slices, or made so large that there is too much election broadcasting for anyone to take in.
- Equality may work better in a new or 'transitional' democracy. This perhaps contradicts the previous point, since new democracies often have many parties (and ruling parties in new democracies may encourage this). But the point is that if there has been no previous democratic election, then there will be no commonly agreed measure of how much popular support each party has.
- Conversely, equity may work better in an established democracy where there are clear measures of past electoral support. Or are the equality advocates right, and does this just obstruct the emergence of new political alternatives?
But even these considerations are only pointers. Many established democracies - France, Italy, Denmark - allocate direct access broadcasting in the public media on the basis of equality (in at least some elections) - see Equal Access for All Parties?. And many new democracies - South Africa, Brazil, Namibia - have allocated time on a proportional or equitable basis - see Equitable (or Fair) Access for Political Parties?.
Whichever approach is adopted, its success will depend in large measure on the credibility and impartiality of the regulating body that allocates the broadcasts. This is a very strong argument for having the political parties themselves involved in drawing up the regulations governing media and elections (see Who Should Be Involved in the Drafting Process?). Parties are more likely to be committed to a process in which they have been consulted and have contributed to designing the system.
All these arguments clearly apply primarily to Criteria for Allocation of Direct Access Time - that is, direct access broadcast programmes that are available free to parties. Paid political advertising, where it is allowed, will usually be on the basis that parties can have as much direct access time as they can afford (or as they are allowed within Political Advertising and Campaign Spending Limits). But this may not always be the case. And if limits are to be applied to paid advertising, then the same considerations of equality and equity may apply.
