Macedonia Urged to Regulate Political Advertising

As the country gears up for nationwide polls, media experts said that more needs to be done to limit the coverage gifted to parties by broadcasters.

Dejan Georgievski, the head of the Media Development Centre NGO, says that a recent change to the electoral code that limits the sum media can give as donation through discounts to 50,000 euro is a “step forward compared to the previous elections in which media appeared as to be the biggest donors to political parties”.

But he said that “despite this restriction, media outlets appearing as election campaign donors seriously questions their independence, impartiality and professionalism”.

“Our stance is that media should not be allowed to appear as donors and that this should be explicitly stated in the electoral code,” he added.

At last year’s local elections and at the early general elections in 2011, the TV stations with national broadcasting licenses were listed as the biggest donors to political parties, particularly to the main ruling VMRO DPMNE.

They were listed as donors of services and advertisement time worth several million euro.

“Discounts varied from zero to 90 and even 100 per cent. There should be no such things. It is not the same if a media gives campaign advertisement space to one party for free and ups the charges for another one,” explained Mirjana Dimovska, a member of the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission.

According to the law, media and political parties are obliged to submit reports to the electoral authority and to the Anti-Corruption Commission after the election campaign detailing how much they have spent on advertisements.

According to the available data from the Anti-Corruption Commission, the TV...