The Organization of Democratic Women (ATFD) presented the results of a study under the theme of “Media monitoring during democratic transition,” conducted in collaboration with many social activists, at a press conference yesterday, September 5th. Sana Ben Achour asserted that the study aims to raise the profile of media in the pre-election period and develop it as a reference for the future.

Sana Ben Achour, President of the Tunisian Association of Demoratic Women (ATFD)

The study focused particularly on issues relating to the registration on the electoral lists, the postponement of the deadline of registration, the case of ‘Abdelfattah Mourou”, the personal status code and the files of corruption.

The study assessed newspaper articles from Al Chourouk, Assabah, Assarih, Assahafa, La Press, Le Temps and Le Quotidien during this period. They found that these printed media have reserved 52.83% of their columns for the activities of parties and relations between political actors, which is considered high, while issues of the electoral process accounted for only 15.13% of coverage.

As for radio, the study has revealed that 35.79% of their airwaves were reserved for debate programs. When it comes to political advertising, radio channels had only reserved 0.93% of their total space.

TV channels provided 69.53% of their space to television programming specializing in political debates and election talk shows.

The study also highlighted “the lack of media coverage of political actors,” which is at a rate of 10.4% for radio, 10.21% for television and only 2.85% for the press.

Ahlem Belhaj, the head of the organization, pointed out that ATFD had been the subject of sharp criticism since they came up with the idea of the survey.

“We have already conducted a similar work in 2009 with collaboration of the Tunisian League for Human Rights, in which we proclaimed that the 2009 elections were a prerequisite for [President Ben Ali to run] for another term in 2014. This brought us a campaign of harassment,” said Sana Ben Achour.

Democratic women emphasized their willingness to report electoral abuses to media, although “obscurantist minds,” as they said, want to deny them this right. Ahlem Belhadj also recalled the issue of lifting reservations on the UN’s Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which was the subject of a meeting she held with other organizations and the minister in charge of women’s affairs.