Authorities responsible for allotment of free propaganda space

1. The Central Electoral Commission shall be the competent authority for allotment of free-ofcharge election propaganda spaces in publicly-owned mass-communication media, whatever their legal owner, on the proposal of the Committee referred to in the following subsections of this present section.


2. A Radio and Television Committee, under the authority of the Central Electoral Commission, shall have competence for making an allotment proposal of free election propaganda spaces.


3. The Committee shall be appointed by the Central Electoral Commission and consist of one representative of each party, federation or coalition intending to take part in the election, provided it is already represented in the Congress of Deputies. Said representative shall have a proportional vote in relation to the Congress’ total membership.


4. The Central Electoral Commission shall also choose the Chairman of the Committee among the representatives appointed according to the preceding subsection.


5. The Central Electoral Commission may delegate to Provincial Electoral Commissions the allotment of free electoral propaganda spaces in regional and local programmes of State-owned media and of media with a similar area of coverage which are also publicly-owned. In this case a committee shall be set up in the territorial area concerned with the same powers as those provided in subsection 2 of this section and with a membership that must take into account the parliamentary representation in the Congress of Deputies of said territory. The Committee shall act under the authority of the corresponding Provincial Electoral Commission.


6. Where elections are being held only to the Legislative Assembly of a Self-governing Community, the functions contemplated in this section in relation to State-owned media, are deemed to be restricted to the territory of said Community and shall be discharged in the manner prescribed in this Act by the Community’s Electoral Commission or, where this is not yet constituted, by the Electoral Commission of the province whose capital is the Community’s capital. In the same event Electoral Commissions of Self-governing Communities shall have at least, in relation to mass-media controlled by the Community or by municipalities thereof, the responsibilities assigned by this section to the Central Electoral Commission, including authority over a Radio and Television Committee where it is so contemplated by the legal statutes of the Self-governing Community governing elections to its Legislative Assembly.