Skopje, 4 October 2020 – The Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services hereby informs the media that the deadlines for registering with the State Election Commission (SEC) and for submitting PPA price lists for the Early Mayoral Elections – Plasnica and Shtip municipalities, respectively – due to be held on 13 December 2020, have started.
Should they wish to provide paid political advertising (PPA) for the early mayoral elections for the municipalities of Plasnica and Shtip, respectively, the broadcasters, print media and electronic media (internet portals) are obliged to register with the State Election Commission (SEC) no later than 24:00 hrs on 5 October 2020, for which they should submit a registration application form, along with their current account status reports issued by the Central Registry of the Republic of North Macedonia, not older than 30 days. The requests are submitted to the following e-mail address: izbori@sec.mk or to the archiving and postal office of the SEC. The media that will fail to register with the SEC, will not have the right to use PPA funds provided by the state budget.
Also, the media are obliged within five days from the day of the call of elections, to specify their price lists for paid political advertising of the participants in the election process and to submit these, by 7 October at the latest, to the State Election Commission, the State Audit Office and the State Commission for Preventing Corruption, while the broadcasters will need to submit these to the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services as well. The price lists must not be changed until the final completion of the election process, while the prices must not exceed the average cost of advertising calculated on the basis of the prices implemented in the last five election cycles.
The State Election Commission has already determined and published on its website the average price achieved and the lowest price for PPA among the broadcasters, print media and electronic media outlets (internet portals). In the period from the establishment of the price lists until the beginning of the election campaign, the broadcasters, the print media and the internet portals are obliged to publish the price lists as part of their programmes at least twice, i.e. in their editions or websites, no later than 20 November 2020.