Skopje, 17 February 2020 – Over the weekend, right before the decision to schedule elections, the Parliament adopted the Law Amending and Supplementing the Electoral Code.
According to the new provisions, all the media – the broadcasters, the print media and the electronic media (internet portals) – which intend to provide paid political advertising (PPA) during the early parliamentary elections due on 12 April 2020, are obliged to register with the State Election Commission (SEC) no later than 24:00 hrs on 19 February 2020. In order to register, they need to submit registration application, along with a current status statement issued by the Central Registry of the Republic of Macedonia not older than 30 days. The applications should be submitted to the following e-mail address: izbori@sec.mk.
The media outlets that will not register with the SEC will not have the right to use the allocated funds for PPA, provided from the State Budget.
The media outlets are also obligated, by 21 February 2020 at the latest, to adopt PPA price lists and to submit them to the State Election Commission, the State Audit Office and the State Commission for Preventing Corruption. In addition, the broadcasters should send their price lists to the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services as well.
The pricelists must not be changed until the end of the election process, and the prices must not exceed the average advertising prices calculated on the basis of the last five election cycles.
The average price and the lowest price for PPA for the broadcasters, print media and electronic media (internet portals) in the last five election cycles are set by the State Election Commission and will be published on its website.
The Agency will be publishing reminders about the obligations related to the different stages of the election process. More information related to the media coverage of the elections are available under the Elections 2020 banner.