Paolo Pietrosanti, member of the Federal Council of Radical Party, was invited as an independent observer for the Constitutional referendum held in Seychelles on Sunday November 15th. Other observer came from Commonwealth.

Pietrosanti wrote down the following statement:

Mahe-Seychelles, 18 November 1992

»I'm going to send to the 20 Ministers and to the 350 Members

of Parliament -including Members of European Parliament- who

are members of Transnational Radical Party, a report about the

Referendum held in Seychelles.

(Ministers and MPs members of Transnational Radical Party come

from 40 countries and they belong to almost 100 different

national parties).

The report will be based on the following subjects:

I visited ten polling stations and I considered the

arrangements to be in correct order.

With the cooperation of two citizens I tested the

effectiveness of the ultra violet invisible ink system and

found it to be ineffective.

It must be emphasised that the people of Seychelles could

not make up their mind freely at the referendum on 15th

November, 1992, because of the enormous lack of correct

knowledge and information.

As a rule, and chiefly in cases regarding elections, state-

owned media must play a PUBLIC SERVICE role whereby correct,

objective and non-partisan information is freely made available

to all citizens.

Although the T.V. service had been broadcasting programmes

for and against the draft Consitution, only three DEBATES were

broadcast on T.V., the last being on October 30th, TWO WEEKS

before the referendum; therefore the information was

inadequate.

The State-Owned daily "Nation" played a one-sided role in

favour in the following ways:

- a) Leaflets in favour of a Yes vote were inserted in "Nation"

on 3rd and 11th November respectively.

- b) on November 12th, a leaflet containing an open letter by

President René, inviting citizens to vote Yes, was enclosed to

each copy of the "Nation".

- c) enclosed to the October 23rd issue, it was distributed "A

Presentation of the Draft Constitution": if put in

confrontation with the Draft Constitution, the task of such a

Presentation seems to be the hiding of real contents of the

Draft Constitution itself.

- d) on 14th November the Nation in a long article on page 13

evidently encouraged the people to vote in favour, whilst the

referendum campaign was over.

Lack of informations involves the freedom of vote (it means

democracy) in itself. Without solving the problem of state-

owned media's editorial management, the democratization process

cannot credibly start.

MY INTERVIEW ON T.V. AND ON RADIO YESTERDAY (17 NOVEMBER 1992)

WAS SO EDITTED THAT MOST OF THE SUBSTANCE OF MY ARGUMENTS WAS

LOST.