Agency General Manager, Sebsibe Kebede told ENA on Tuesday that 17 political parties are given an opportunity to use the newspapers' space to advance their campaigns, an opportunity not used by most from February 8 to March 9, 2010.

However, only five of them made use of the opportunity.

Those political parties which began to use Addis Zemen, Amharic daily, are EPRDF, AENM, Forum, AEUP and CUD, he added.

The remaining 12 parties haven't so far mailed their campaign texts to the agency.

The General Manager said for instance, EPRDF used 16 of the 28 newspaper pages allocated while AEUP used half the page allotted to it.

The ONC, EDP and ONIP are some of the political parties which have not used the newspaper space given to them.

He said the political parties need to use the airspace given to them and make the forthcoming national elections peaceful, democratic and fair by expressing their opinions freely.

Sebsibe said his agency is ready to provide professional support to those political parties who are in need.

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