<B>BY Pauline ETIENNE</B>

One could wonder why the leader of the opposition, Paul Bérenger, is making of private television his new hobby-horse. With the number of problems the country has been facing over the past few months, there must be other burning and more biting issues, which could rally many citizens to his cause. But this time, the opposition chose not to be demagogic with popular issues like the rise in the price of basic commodities or the law and order issue? The political bureau of the Mauritian Militant Movement (MMM) has tackled the serious issue of liberalisation of television and set up a commission for the implementation of private television chaired by Pritam Parmessur, Atma Bumma and Cader Kalla.

This decision is a sign that the Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) is not up to its expectations. The opposition seems to have heard the voices of all the frustrated Mauritians who no longer watch the news on local TV.

The party members must realise how bad it is not to be able to reach the people through the media. As the MBC sees only those in power ? whoever they may be ? the opposition is not in the limelight. It should, however, not have too short a memory since its people used the same media at their own convenience when it was in power. And Navin Ramgoolam obviously suffered from this situation at the time, as he promised he would launch private television when he got to power.

But then, he has put his own people at the head of public television and he must be very satisfied with what he sees on TV every evening at 7.30 pm. He only sees how hard his ministers have been working during the day and how healthy and safe the country is. (And he sometimes threatens us the press with a media commission because we have been publishing false news, doesn?t he?)

It is true that the advent of private radios in the media landscape must not have had a very positive impact on those ruling the country. It is probably one of the best ways for the public to voice out their frustrations and angers towards a government, which they feel has not kept the commitments it made two and a half years ago to change their lives for the better. So, the government in power may not want to renew the experience of opening up the air to people?s frustrations ? afraid of losing some popularity.

As a result, it appears that the only hope for the population to be granted with private quality television may be that the opposition parties fight for this. There is little chance that the government takes the initiative of launching such a channel if it does not suffer from any pressure? Even if Paul Bérenger himself was to come back to power in 2010, I am not sure whether he will still be as interested as he is at the moment in promoting a private TV channel!