Michel’s new cabinet
THE NEW MINISTRY FOR PROPAGANDA
President Michel’s new government was announced this week, and the event of note was that, in a deft sleight-of-hand, the President pulled the information portfolio away from under
In order to guarantee that nothing stands in his path, the President duly promoted Nation editor, Mr. Denis Rose, to the new post of Principal Secretary for the Arts, Culture and Sports. Whilst Rose may have in the past argued for a more balanced reporting in the light of the requirements of our fledgling democracy, that obstacle has now been completely removed. With Rose gone, there is now nobody at the Seychelles Nation brave enough to stand up against the State House propaganda machinery.
The man who has been entrusted with the important tasking of misinforming the people is Michel’s trusted and long time aide, Mr. René Morel, a former Nation editor himself. He has been promoted to the new post of Principal Secretary of Information and Public Relations. It had been widely rumoured in the past that Morel was pulling the strings of Seychelles Nation from his State House base. Now he has been given a freer hand.
It seems that all that Michel now has to do is to extend his control to the ‘soi-disant’ independent Seychelles Broadcasting Corporation. But this he has already done as most media observers know. Early this year, Marie-Claire Moustache was brushed aside as the Head of News, a position from which the broadcasting content of SBC is controlled, in favour of Mr. Antoine Onezime. No sooner had this taken place than Mr. Onezime was seen reporting on the events considered crucial to the image of Michel and the SPPF or events that are more damaging to the opposition. This continued during the election campaign and shows no sign of abating. In another shrewd move, Michel is reported to have asked that Mr. Larrey Chetty be re-instated in his post as Head of FM Radio, after SBC Managing Director Ibrahim Afif had given Chetty his marching orders in the run up to the election. Both Mr. Onezime and Mr. Chetty are on record, in public anyway, as saying that they have to toe the government line.
Ironically, Michel is now in a position to dispose of Afif, after the opposition has in the past rightly or wrongly accused Afif of being the manipulator-in-chief at the corporation. Sacrificing Afif in favour of a more ‘independent’ director will then be a small price for Michel to pay, and will not have much impact on his objectives since he already has his key players in place.
These developments may look innocent enough on the surface but when taken into the context of what happened in the run up to the election, things take a more sinister outlook. During the election campaign, both SBC and the Nation carried stories which reflected largely the program of the SPPF candidates and practically ignored the opposition. In the final week of the campaign, during the cooling-off period, in violation of the electoral code of conduct, the Nation newspaper was still reporting on the government program to buy back the mortgages of homeowners from private banks, a key issue which directly impacted on hundreds of people. The Electoral Commissioner has not seen it fit to take the Nation to task for violating agreed campaign rules.
In the light of these developments, the opposition’s only response must be to set up its own broadcasting organisations; where it will find the money to meet the huge and prohibitive license fees is another matter. Alternatively, it can consider setting up a daily newspaper to rival the Seychelles Nation. Since both of these options are likely to take some time to implement, if at all, it can be expected that Michel will capitalise on his propaganda machinery to continue to mislead those of us who cannot separate the news wheat from the propaganda chaff.
His first task: how to sell the devaluation of the rupee to a public that he has conned into thinking that devaluation is a monster of the opposition. His spin doctors are already toying with the notion of deregulation – control speak, if you ask me!
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