Skopje, 15 February 2024 – The announcement of Presidential and Parliamentary Elections, scheduled for 24 April and 8 May 2024 have brought into force the provisions of the Electoral Code, also marking the start of the monitoring of media coverage on the part of the Agency for Audio and Audiovisual Media Services. Until the beginning of the electoral campaign, the monitoring will be focused on nine state-level television programme services, while all other programme services will be monitored based upon complaints.
The broadcasters that will be airing paid political advertising (PPA), should observe the three-day deadline for registering with the State Election Commission (SEC), and the five-day deadline for setting the PPA price lists and submitting them to the competent institutions: the SEC, the State Audit Office, the State’s Anti-Corruption Commission and AVMU. Reporting on the regular activities of the state bodies, municipal authorities and the City of Skopje, the state institutions and organizations, as well as other legal entities holding public powers, must not perform the role of pre-election media representation of any political entity.
The rules for publishing the results of the public opinion polls related to the participants in the electoral process should be observed, as should the bans on broadcasting PPA before the start of the election campaign, broadcasting advertisements financed from the Budget, and the ban on simultaneous engagement of editors, journalists, programme hosts and presenters in the broadcasters’ programmes and in the pre-election activities of the participants in the election campaign.
The Public Broadcasting Service and the national broadcasters that have decided to cover the electoral process are obliged to do so in a format and in a language accessible and available to persons with disabilities.
When reporting on the electoral process, broadcasters are obliged to abide by the professional principles of journalistic activity, the principle of objective and impartial presentation of the events in particular, ensuring equal treatment of the diverse viewpoints and opinions, so as to enable the audience to freely form their own opinion about certain events and issues. At the same time, all broadcasters are obliged to respect the specific prohibitions laid down in Article 48 of the Law on AAVMS.
As it has done before, the Agency has again placed a banner on its website containing all the materials related to the electoral process: laws and bylaws, a complaint form, etc. Apart from the Macedonian language, this banner also contains Albanian- and English-language versions.