CHAPTER THREE: DEMOCRACY AND POLITICAL GOVERNANCE conform to the law. This has given rise to numerous recriminations relating to restrictions on the freedom of political expression. 177. The registered parties perform their activities under relatively satisfactory conditions and have access to the media. Access to national television remains very limited and includes coverage of the most important activities, direct expression of opinion by the parties represented in the assemblies, and relatively equitable distribution of broadcast time during electoral campaigns. Several stakeholders expressed dissatisfaction at the limited television time, the refusal to approve private television channels in contravention of the law, as well as unjustified restrictions on public protests. The existence of these restrictions has been verified and it is to be hoped that they will progressively be lifted with the consolidation of the Republic and democracy. 178. The same applies to public financing of political parties, which is essentially limited to public financing of electoral campaigns on the basis of the number of elected members in each party. Many parties complained about the drastic limitation, by law, on other ways of financing their activities and about the modest resources allocated to them, given that this had a negative impact on their capacity to act. An opinion survey revealed that 31.8 per cent of the interviewees found the method of allocating resources to political parties to be fair, whereas 23.9 per cent deemed it good and 15.9 per cent very good, compared with 25.6 per cent who found it inadequate. 179. Electoral competition remains fairly equitable and the organisation of elections has improved with each successive election. The progressively increasing neutrality of the electoral commission, party and voter participation in the monitoring of voting procedures and the counting of the votes, as well as rapid and free access to legal recourse in electoral matters have no doubt contributed to this. These are democratic practices that must be encouraged and promoted in this young democracy, although the absence of the Socialist Forces Front (FFS) party in parliament, following its decision not to participate in the legislative elections. 180. The opinion survey carried out in February 2007 revealed that 45.8 per cent of the interviewees felt that “the electoral system as it is practised … favours loyalties to various sympathies”, compared with 43.20 per cent who thought the opposite. There is thus something to be said for continuing the discussion on reforming the electoral system. This would no doubt have the effect of tempering criticism of its arbitrary nature and the manipulation of candidate lists by party structures. 181. It has, in effect, been noted that the composition of the elected assemblies, like that of senior administration, is not always a fair reflection of the geographic, linguistic and sociocultural complexity and diversity of a country the size of a sub-continent. In workshops held during the CRM‟s visit to Tamanrasset in Tuareg, the poor representation of the Tuareg in the decision-making bodies of the wilayas was pointed out. The poor representation of women, youth, intellectuals and certain social groups, the contested representativeness of 72