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Article 77
 

Basic Duties of Mass Media during Pre-Election Campaign.

77.1.    If founders of TV, radio companies or periodicals are the state bodies and organizations, or funded from the state budget, those TV, radio companies and editorial offices of the periodicals shall create equal conditions for registered candidates, political parties and block of political parties to conduct their election campaign, and for referendum campaign groups having 20 thousand members and more to conduct their pre-referendum campaign for or against issues to be discussed at a referendum, using allocations from the government budget. Organizations mentioned above cannot campaign for or against the registered candidates, political parties and block of political parties, issues to be discussed at a referendum on their own initiative.

77.2.    TV, radio companies and periodicals mentioned in Article 77.1. of this Code which are aired and distributed in half or in more than half of the territory of the Azerbaijan Republic shall be obliged to create conditions for the registered candidates for Presidential elections, political parties, blocks of political parties with registered candidates in more than 60 single mandate election constituencies or in more than a half of all municipalities, and the campaign groups on referendum, which have 40,000 or more members, to conduct pre-election campaign. The Central Election Commission shall publish the list of TV-radio companies, periodicals mentioned above on the basis of document submitted by relevant executive authority no later than 20 days after the decision on determination of elections has been officially published.

77.3.    TV and radio companies aired in less than half of the territory of Azerbaijan Republic, as well as the relevant branches of TV and radio companies mentioned in Article 77.2 of this Code and periodicals mentioned in Article 77.1. of this Code which is distributed in less than half of the territory of Azerbaijan Republic can create conditions for candidates for single mandate who collected the required number of voter signatures in the order determined by this Code and the campaign groups on referendum, which have 20,000 or more members and political parties, blocks of political parties which candidates have been registered in more than 1/3 of all municipalities, to conduct their election campaign within the territory of relevant administrative unit. The list of TV-radio companies and periodicals shall be published by the relevant Constituency Election Commission on the basis of a document submitted by the relevant executive authority at least within 50 days after a decision on determination of elections has been officially published.

77.4     If founders of the TV, radio companies and periodicals not considered by Article 77.1. of this Code are the municipalities, they shall have to create equal conditions for the campaign groups on referendum, which have 2,000 or more members, registered candidates to the relevant municipality which were covered by the relevant constituency to conduct their election campaign. They shall have to create equal conditions for the registered candidate, political parties, blocks of political parties and campaign group on referendum with the reason of conducting a campaign in territory of the relevant municipality. If TV- radio companies and periodicals do not participate in the campaign activities at all, they can refuse to publish any materials or to allocate airtime regardless of their status.