The ANC plans to approach the SABC to seek more airtime from the public broadcaster to spread its “propaganda” in the lead-up to this year’s local government elections.
President Cyril Ramaphosa said this at the ANC’s national executive committee meeting held two weekends ago.
“We will be campaigning under Covid-19 regulations, with constrained finances and in the middle of winter. We will need to be very innovative,” said Ramaphosa.
“As I said to caucus the other day, we really should request to be given more time on public broadcasting platforms than we would have been given in non-pandemic times. Our ability to make direct, face-to-face contact with the people will be limited by the pandemic.
“The ANC should also saturate both conventional and community media platforms with our message and propaganda. This would mean our message should be short and punchy. It must grab the people.”
ANC elections head Fikile Mbalula said “I went to see them in the last election and then we had a good discussion. It was blown out of proportion with a lot of hippo flies, that I went to intimidate people.”
Mbalula said the ANC had not had discussions with the SABC because it was happy with the coverage it got in the last election.
Gugu Ntuli, SABC group executive for corporate affairs and marketing, said “For all elections coverage, including the 2021 local government elections, the SABC is legally obliged to adhere to the stipulated Icasa regulations for equitable coverage. Therefore, no party-political preferential treatment will be entertained, as this is not provided for in the regulations”.
Icasa chairperson Keabetswe Modimoeng said it had not been approached by any political party about increasing airtime for local government elections. Airtime is allocated in terms of the municipal electoral regulations.
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