Ido lekota

Ido lekota

The SABC says it will cover all political parties according to the number of their paliamentary seats.

Those who are still to prove themselves at the ballot box would have to generate newsworthy events to get coverage from the public broadcaster.

This is to ensure that there is equitable coverage of all political parties during this year's election, SABC news head Snuki Zikalala said.

Addressing the media at the public broadcaster's launch of its election coverage, Zikalala said the SABC was guided by the election legislation on how to equitably cover political parties.

This means the ANC with 297 of the 400 parliamentary seats would be afforded most time while the PAC with one seat will get the least.

He also said that the SABC had appointed an official to deal with complaints from political parties.

Zikalala said the SABC would run special election programmes to ensure that the electorate was informed about the various political parties' policies.

This would include a weekly debate, which will be hosted by the University of Johannesburg and broadcast live on SABC2 on Sundays from 9pm to 10pm. The first debate will take place on Sunday.

SABC acting chief executive Gab Mampone said the public broadcaster had budgeted R42 million for the coverage of this year's election.

Meanwhile, Zikalala has demanded that the police return the unedited version of the tape they confiscated at an accident scene involving a car in President Kgalema Motlanthe's motorcade.