Allocating Terms of Free Airtime for Conducting Pre-election Campaign on TV and Radio.
80.1. The candidates for Presidential elections or political parties, blocks of political parties with candidates registered in more than 60 single mandate election constituencies or more than a half of all municipalities, and the referendum campaign groups, which have 40,000 or more members, shall have the right to use free airtime on TV and radio companies for conducting free pre-election campaign according to the Article 77.2 of this Code.
80.2. Candidates registered for single-mandate constituencies and the campaign groups on referendum, which have 20,000 or more members, as well as political parties, blocks of political parties which candidates have been registered in more than 1/3 of all municipalities shall have the right to use free airtime on TV and radio companies for conducting free pre-election campaign according to the Article 77.3 of this Code.
80.3. The candidates to membership of municipality and the campaign groups on referendum, which have 2,000 or more members, shall have the right to use free airtime on TV and radio companies with the purpose of conducting pre-election campaign according to Article 77.4 of this Code.
80.4. A draw shall be conducted among the registered candidates, political parties, blocks of political parties with the reason of division of the free airtime allocated according to Article 80.7. of this Code, on the basis of a submitted application, within one week period after the commencement of the period set forth in Article 75 of this Code.
80.5 The total volume of the allocated free airtime by the TV and radio companies should not be less than 3 hours in a week for pre-election campaign according to Article 77.2 of this Code; According to Article 77.3 of this Code, the total volume of the allocated free airtime by the TV and radio companies should not be less than 1 hour and 30 minutes in a week for pre-election campaign. If the total airtime of those broadcasting companies is less than 2 hours during a day, the mentioned airtime should not be less than ¼ part of total volume of programs. The allocated free airtime should be within the time when most of the viewers can watch it.
80.6. The free airtime provided by broadcasting companies shall be divided on equal terms and by equal volume among the registered candidates, political parties, blocks of political parties and campaign groups on referendum.
80.7. Date and time of airing of pre-election materials shall be determined by a draw conducted by the relevant election commission with participation of representatives of TV and radio companies. The information about the time and place of the draw shall be officially published. The persons mentioned in the Articles 40.2 and 40.4 of this Code have the right to participate in draw. The results of the draw shall be formalized by a protocol. The table of division of airtime defined by the draw should be published in the periodicals mentioned in the Articles 77.2 and 77.3 of this Code.
80.8. Expenses spent by TV and Radio companies regarding allocation of the free airtime to candidates, political parties, blocks of political parties and referendum campaigning groups shall be reimbursed from the state budget to those TV and Radio companies.
