Four minutes and thirty-six seconds in prime time was the time taken by the candidate’s campaign Alvaro Delgado to promote his government plan.
The promotion, however, comes at the final minute, with the message from the former Secretary of the Presidency’s website where the document is accessed. Before doing so, a detailed overview of the policies of the government of Luis Lacalle Pou, interspersed with messages at Delgado’s political events. The sum is a synthesis of what is baptized as “first floor of transformations” and the promise of moving towards a second floor.
It was that audiovisual construction that ignited anger in the Broad Front (FA) and Open Town Hall (CA), forces that considered the duration of the spot to be exaggerated to end up promoting a website.
The FA considered that the piece is clearly a campaign spot and not an invitation to read the government program on the website. Alvaro Delgado.
The actual electoral advertising law (17,045) indicates that “political parties may begin their electoral advertising in the media of radio broadcasting, open television, television for subscribers and written press from 30 for the internal elections”, that is, on June 1 in this case.
From the National Party They pointed out that the spot complies with the law because it falls within article 2 of the same, which excludes “the dissemination of information about political events and usual activities of the functioning of the parties,” since it is an invitation to learn about the program. of Delgado’s government.
For Cabildo Abierto, however, the discussion does not concern the deadlines met or missed for the promotion of the pre-candidate Álvaro Delgado, but rather the “almost obscene deployment of certain currents or political sectors, which are making a demonstration of economic power and resources that seem almost infinite”, in the words of its leader, Senator Guido Manini Ríos.
With a month and a half left for the internal elections and several more for the October general elections, it is likely that the dispute over airtime will be repeated between the political forces. In that debate, the Parliament has a central role to play.
An election with flexible rules due to lack of agreement in Parliament
The new law on political parties and electoral advertising has a half sanction in Deputies since the end of last year, but his treatment in Senate it is expanding. The first crux of the issue: the senators in committee rejected the text approved by the lower house.
The initiative voted by the deputies enabled the media to extend the advertising period to 20 minutes per hour during the electoral campaign period, allocating half of that time to spots. Furthermore, it established considerations for these transmissions and distributed the time between the slogans, although without specifying how it should be distributed.
The National Party in the Senate rejected the text with half a sanction and, instead, proposed that each political party have a single five-minute message prior to the general elections and the runoff without compensation.
The special commission on democracy financing of the Upper House began debating the new project last week, but once again delayed it waiting for the industry commission approve the Media lawsuggesting that there could be articles linked to electoral advertising.
Source: Ambito
