THE RUMOUR MILL
IS THERE SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE?
The Seychellois public was stunned last week to learn from the Independent newspaper that there are actually two rumours currently making the rounds: one - that President Michel is having an extra marital affair; two - that President Michel’s son has been arrested in
The question many are asking is whether Percy Ah-man, the Editor of the Independent, obtained sanction from State House to publish these shocking rumours or is Percy Ah-man trying to increase his newspaper’s sluggish circulation through sensation?
President Michel is the most visible public figure in the country at the moment. Although there is an unwritten rule amongst journalists and paparazzi that all public figures are fair game, President Michel started his presidency with a very public profile of his private as well as professional life. The constitution of
Political analysts are also trying to figure out why it is the Independent and not The People that attempted to dispel these rumours?
Unlike his predecessor, President Michel has been adept in using the state broadcasting media to publicise his plans for the country for the next 5 years. It is surprising therefore that State House has been surreptitiously quiet about these rumours. It would be too easy for the President to orchestrate a media blitz to put an end to these rumours once and for all. The official media blackout is suspicious to say the least. Although there have been some intimations in the opposition media about the rumours, it cannot be said by any stretch of the imagination that Leo the Turtle for instance, was suggesting that the rumours are true.
However, the Independent seems to have gone out of its way to counter the rumours and put the record straight. Whether the gossips are bordering on truth or fiction is by all means not certain. Except for the Independent front page article and a flitting mention of it in Regar, nothing serious has been uttered by The People, either to confirm or refute the rumours. President Michel has, it seems, chosen to ignore the rumours completely although his frequent and un-explained day trips to
Perhaps the best strategy would be for the president himself to address these rumours publicly, to lay them to rest once and for all, rather than keeping quiet about them. Is the President perhaps being advised not to react at all in the hope that the rumours would somehow mysteriously disappear as surreptitiously as they had emerged? Whatever the basis for the emergence of the rumour, the President has the constitutional right to privacy much the same way as every citizen of this country is protected. The propriety or otherwise of the Independent to give prominence and publicity to gossips about the President’s private or family life in a front page article is cheap, despicable and deserves abhorrence and contempt.