Elections of deputies of the Jogorku Kenesh will be held on November 28 of this year. The election campaign of candidates will be launched on October 29. We talked about the rules of election campaigning with Nargiza Nanakeeva, a member of the Working Group on informing voters and other subjects of the electoral process and the rules of campaigning of the CEC.
– Tell me, please, when will the pre-election campaign start?
– According to the calendar plan of the CEC, the pre-election campaign will begin on October 29 and end on November 27 at 8.00, and from this moment the day of silence begins.
– Pre – election campaigning has a special role in the vyvory process . During this period, voters will recognize those for whom they will have to vote on election day. Quite a large number of people participate in the election campaign. Who is this?
– We must decide what information is and what agitation is. Campaigning can be carried out by citizens of the Kyrgyz Republic, authorized persons, representatives of political parties, candidates. And the media, the CEC and so on are engaged in informing.
– Everyone during this period has their own rules, this time have they undergone changes?
– With the adoption of the new Constitution, amendments were made to the electoral legislation. The CEC made changes to the Regulations on campaigning rules and to the Instruction on the procedure for drawing lots for the provision of free airtime to political parties and candidates. As for the changes about who can now engage in campaigning and who can be involved in this. When elections to local keneshes were held, social media users posted a lot of videos, from which it was seen how quarterly ones themselves campaign for a political party, and house committees do not let agitators of other political parties.
After that, a clause was added, according to which house committees and district, municipal and state employees cannot be agitators – this is considered the use of administrative resources.
– At the same time, municipal and local authorities should provide premises for candidates, where they can conduct campaign meetings with their voters.
– There are places where election campaigning cannot be carried out – these are places of worship, mosques, temples. There have been cases when the ministers of a religious cult campaigned for a certain party. This is prohibited in the new legislation.
– There were cases when whole stadiums gathered, where artists and singers were brought. What forms of mass meetings remained and will be used before these elections?
– The legislation prohibits holding concerts, arranging shows, but it is allowed to perform the anthem.
– It turns out that the candidates for deputies can organize some kind of meeting indoors and talk about their program?
– In the last elections, there were cases when political parties attracted pop singers and said that they were their agitators. The hiring of pop singers as agitators is not prohibited by law.
– Meetings with voters, as well as the production of advertising stands, brochures – all this refers to the campaign. What violations can there be?
– Campaign materials are those materials that are posted in the media, which have been accredited by the CEC and are accompanied by imprint. The imprint must indicate the customer, the circulation and, without fail, that this material is paid for from the electoral fund of a candidate or political party.
– A large role in the pre-election campaign belongs to the media – print and online publications, television and radio. There are also social networks. What is the difference when campaign materials are posted in CEC-accredited media or social networks? Who will follow social networks, because there are so many of them now? What kind of information will be suppressed?
– If the campaign passes through the media, then it is quite easy to track it, and the possibilities of social networks are practically unlimited. When registering, parties indicate their social page, but there were cases when the campaign period had not yet begun at the last elections, but campaigning was already underway. Then, of course, we were prosecuted. But if this is a fake account, then it is almost impossible to prosecute.
– What are the penalties for violations of the rules of election campaigning?
– For candidates and parties – administrative punishment up to and including dismissal.
Source: Kyrgyz National News Agency