Home > 1.3 Free suffrage > CZECH REPUBLIC- Act on Elections to the Parliament and on Amendments of Certain Other Acts
 
 
 
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Article 16
 

The Election Campaign

(1) For the purposes of an election campaign, on the sixteenth day prior to the day of the elections, the Mayor may allocate a space suitable for election campaign posters and campaigning advertisements. Such campaign allowance of space shall accommodate the right to equality of Political Parties and coalitions nominating their candidates to stand for election to the Chamber of Delegates or to the Senate, or, as the case may be, of independent candidates standing for election to the Senate.

(2) Integrity and honesty shall be the rules governing election campaigning and canvassing, and false information shall not be distributed to the public concerning either candidate nor the Political Parties nor coalitions that nominate the candidates in their list of candidates.

(3) From the sixteenth day prior to the day of the elections, until the forty-eighth hour prior to the opening of elections, Political Parties and coalitions nominating candidates to stand for elections to the Chamber of Delegates shall be allotted a total of fourteen hours of air time on broadcasting channels on Czech Radio, and fourteen hours of air time on broadcasting channels on Czech Television for the purpose of their election campaign. The broadcasting time shall be allotted free of charge and apportioned evenly among the Political Parties and coalitions involved. The time and hour when each Political Party and coalition shall be on air shall be determined by drawing lots. Liability and answerability for the contents of the television and radio programmes broadcasted shall rest with the Political Party and coalition that is canvassing.

(4) Neither any local radio station nor any public address system shall be used for the purposes of any Political Party, coalition, and independent candidate canvassing.

(5) In the course of the last forty-eight hours prior to the opening of elections and on the election days, any campaigning and canvassing in favour of Political Parties, coalitions and candidates shall be prohibited; in buildings in which ward election boards have their headquarters, and in their immediate vicinity, no facts that may cause prejudice of a Political Party, coalition or candidate shall be made public whether in words, writing, or in the form of a sound or picture. Election forecasts resulting from public-opinion polls shall not be published after the seventh day preceding the day of the elections. During the elections, no public preference research shall be made in the building in which the polling station has been located.

(6) Members of any election board and members of the staff of any election board special team shall be prohibited from disclosing any information in connection with the polling process and/or partial voting results until the board's record of the election outcome has been signed.

(7) No results of any election preference research shall be released throughout the course of the voting until the closing of polling stations.