Guidelines for Understanding, Adjudicating, and Resolving Disputes in Elections Moreover, in Nigeria, IFES, with the collaboration of the Legal Defense Centre, organized a consultation on electoral dispute resolution to facilitate discussion among stakeholders on monitoring and reporting the activities of Election Tribunals.290 Forty-two representatives of civil society organizations, the media, the judiciary and the Nigeria Bar Association attended the consultation, in which moderators presented a thorough background on complaints adjudication and the reform process.291 Timor-Leste also provides us with a strong example of the role of media in the complaints adjudication process. Following strong national and international criticism about the National Election Commission in Timor-Leste’s (CNE) public outreach and lack of neutrality, IFES fielded a media advisor for CNE spokespersons before and during the parliamentary election cycle.292 IFES helped to produce a series of interactive radio and TV programs that included topics on election complaints and developed summaries of all complaints and a weekly Complaints Analysis Report accessible to the public and the media.293 The media’s role is to provide the public with accurate and impartial information.294 Each candidate and political party “shall have an equal opportunity of access to the media, particularly the mass communications media, in order to put forward their political views.”295 The 2004 presidential elections in Ukraine provide an instructive example of bias in statefunded media. As pointed out by John Hardin Young in International Election Principles, more air-time and more positive press were given to Viktor Yanukovych, the incumbent Prime Minister.296 The opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko was thus put at an unfair disadvantage. Such media practices undermine the integrity and impartiality of the election process. The allegation of impartial coverage along with the alleged fraud can lead to lack of faith in the electoral process and to massive post-election protests. Following the last Guatemalan General Elections, the E.U. Observation Mission recommended that Guatemala “revise the current limits on the amounts of time and space that may be used in the media for the purAlmami Cyllah, IFES, Support to the Electoral Process in Nigeria 37 (2009). Id. 292 IFES Timor-Leste Report, supra note 135, at 9-10. 293 Id. at 11. 294 IMPACS Report, supra note 283, at 12. 295 Declaration on Elections, supra note 54, art. 3, § 4. 296 Young, supra note 60, at 296. 290 291 88