Compensation to television channels for electoral propaganda generates disagreements among legislators, and could be discussed directly in the plenary session.
The special commission of Deputies that the project deals with political party financing law in Uruguay is still unable to agree on the final articles of the text and, above all, regarding free advertising on television channels contemplated by the initiative agreed upon by the Broad Front, he Colorado Party and the Independent Party. The responsibility could pass directly to the plenary session, next Tuesday the 28th.
The ruling party is still unable to resolve its differences regarding nodal issues of the political party financing bill, although it managed to advance in the approval of others 7 items during yesterday’s session. In this way, the commission has already approved almost two thirds of the textalthough the general agreement is to continue working to improve the wording of the articles.
Today’s objective is to unblock the issue of free advertising on television media during electoral campaigns, discussed in the articles 13 and 14something in which National Party would not you agree. The idea is that the law be approved with “the greatest political consensus” and with “the votes of the government and the opposition”; a premise to which the nationalists would be being the greatest obstacle.
The position of the National Party
The compensation either consideration for the channels is a modification introduced by the National Party to the political party financing bill, specifically to the initiative for stations to provide free minutes of advertising during the electoral campaign. In this sense, the nationalist deputy Juan Martin Rodriguez warned that this measure establishes that the channels “carry the weight” on the audiovisual media and, if approved, would lead to the loss of jobs.
This was expressed in dialogue with Subrayado, in relation to article 13 of the text that is trying to be approved in the special commission of the Chamber of Deputies. This imposition of 10 free minutes per hour for political parties from March to December of the electoral periods was also rejected by both the National Association of Broadcasters of Uruguay (Andebu) as for the Television Camera for Subscribers.
For Rodríguez, finding a “fair price is very difficult,” but it is necessary to establish “a consideration.” “There must be political will for this compensation to exist,” said the legislator, who believes that if this compensation is not implemented “there should not be free minutes.” “We are willing to vote against. We are not willing to put even more weight on the audiovisual media when that surely and unfortunately ends up having an impact on loss of jobs“he warned.
The legislator did not rule out the possibility that articles linked to media advertising will be dealt with directly in the plenary session of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday the 28th.
Source: Ambito
