GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – The ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has sought to defend the decision to have two working journalists among the list of its candidates for the August 28 regional and general elections, insisting that the Guyana Constitution guarantees freedom of political association.
In a statement sent to the Independent Refereeing Panel, set up under the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM) Media Code of Conduct, PPP/C that its list of candidates contained two persons “of active journalistic background”.
It said one of the candidates was forced to resign his position while the other has asked to be reassigned from presenting the newscast and on reporting on the elections campaign.
“It must be recognised that our Constitution guarantees freedom of political association. The PPP/C will not stop anyone, including persons who do not subscribe to its programme, from exercising that right which was won after long and hard struggles.”
The party quoted President Bharrat Jagdeo as having “made it clear that persons working in government agencies on political parties’ lists of candidates will not be asked to resign or pressured in anyway”.
It said there were “persons who are on Opposition lists of candidates working in government ministries.
The PPP was responding to a statement issued by the Independent Refereeing Panel that the media “were not only reporting the news but were also making it” as the campaigning continued for the elections.
In the statement, the Panel said that about “10 working media people, among them, signatories last January to the Media Code of Conduct, have signed up as election candidates”.
“Running for election is incompatible with the mission of working journalists engaged in the gathering and reporting of news. In an election season, the public, which is entitled to expect from the media news that is credible and bias-free, stands to be disappointed if reporters and presenters are politically aligned to the extent of being party standard bearers and candidates.”
It said that the Code of Conduct obliges media people “to hold themselves independent and free of any, or all, control and direction from any of the political parties”.
“Those candidates who, as permitted under Guyana law, are also media owners, are bound under terms of the Code not to use their publications or broadcasts for campaigning and clearly to separate the news from political comment,” said Lennox Grant, a member of the Independent Refereeing Panel.
In its statement, the PPP/C was also critical of the privately owned newspaper “Stabroek News” saying it had failed to apologise or retract a story that the party paid persons money to participate in its Nomination Day parade ahead of the August 28 elections.
PPP/C said that the newspaper had given a “false, reckless and unsubstantiated report” that it paid G$3000 (US$15) to persons to participate in the event.
The Independent Refereeing Panel said the report by the newspaper “fails the test of fairness and simple professionalism”.
“The newspaper reported no attempt of its own to substantiate the woman’s claim, and instead gave gratuitous publicity to a damaging assertion related to a sensitive political question.”
“Remarks attributed to the editor in the July 28 paper compounded the offence by misleadingly stating that “a Stabroek News reporter quite properly investigated the matter and reported on it.” In fact, as of this writing, the report is still to be retracted or substantiated, and the editor was quoted as dismissing the PPP/C complaint as “the usual election campaign rhetoric,” the Panel said.