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Election Commission bans campaign-related broadcasts
Source: News reports
A senior official with the Central Election Commission (CEC) said Tuesday that television and radio stations will be barred from broadcasting campaign activities over the next 10 days.
The election law bars candidates and political parties from broadcasting campaign commercials on TV or radio 10 days before the elections, in an effort to prevent candidates from manipulating an election's results with false or misleading advertisements.
CEC Chairman Huang Shi-chen apparently views the broadcast of campaign activities as political advertisements.
CEC officials commented on the controversial issue at a sensitive moment, while all the major political parties, including ruling the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and opposition Kuomintang (KMT), have purchased live broadcasts for their candidates' campaign rallies.
Asked whether local televisions would be allowed to go on broadcasting President Chen Shui-bian's appearances at campaign activities for DPP candidates, Huang and CEC Secretary-General Tsai Li-hsueh responded, "All campaign-related broadcasts will be banned."
Although Huang declined to say whether the TV stations' future broadcasts of campaign rallies would constitute a violation of the election laws, Huang said that "no campaign activity on TV and radio channels will be allowed, except for the activities held for all candidates by the government."
Another CEC official told reporters that the Cabinet-level Government Information Office would record all campaign commercials and footage of the campaigns on TV and radio over the next 10 days before the CEC could determine whether the parties and candidates defied the law.
The legislative, mayoral and county magistrate elections are scheduled for December 1.
In response to the ban, KMT spokesman Chou Shou-hsun said that "As long as the TV stations stop televising President Chen Shui-bian's campaigning for DPP candidates, we will observe the regulations."
The president, Vice President Annette Lu and Premier Chang Chun-hsiung have repeatedly stumped for the DPP's nominees' for lawmakers, mayors and county magistrates around the country.
The KMT plans to hold six campaign rallies and to televise them on the spot via two cable TV stations.
Chou told reporters that the KMT and the TV stations, which have conducted research on the issue, have decided that attendants at the rallies should avoid using election-related language.
The KMT spokesman went on to say that "we are only going to call for unity and for building a better Taiwan in the activities. The rallies will be televised as 'regular TV programs' rather than TV commercials."
Although the CEC decided to consider the campaigns on TV campaign commercials, the ruling DPP, which has planned to telecast several of its campaign rallies on the spot over the next 10 days, has yet to abandon its plan.
A DPP official said that it is the Government Information Office rather than the CEC that has the right to decide whether a TV station has made its TV programs into commercials.
Meanwhile, an official in the Presidential Office stressed that the president would observe the election laws, adding that no campaign-related language would be used in the rallies to be broadcast on TV or radio.
Liao Tsang-song, a spokesman for the opposition People First Party, said it would observe the election laws and stop broadcasting all its election commercials.
Meanwhile, most local TV channels scheduled to televise the rallies said they would not drop their plans.
They stressed that the CEC should have viewed the broadcasting of the campaign rallies as regular TV programs rather than political commercials.
Nonetheless, a small number of cable TV stations have decided to wait and see what further comments are made by the CEC on the issue.
An official with the Government Information Office said his agency would cooperate with local governments in recording all suspicious broadcasts by cable TV stations, starting Wednesday.
The TV and radio stations, according to the election laws, will be barred from telecasting campaign commercials but allowed to publicize results of opinion surveys on the voters' support during the 10 days.
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