St.Petersburg YABLOKO claims that all candidates and parties must have equal access to state media
Press release, 11.08.2016
The St.Petersburg branch of YABLOKO forwarded an appeal to the city election commission demanding to compel the state media to proved free printing area to all participants of the elections.
Previously the election commission published a list of regional media, which are bound to provide free printing area to the parties and candidates, who are running in the parliamentary election. State mass media directly belongs to the government and received subsidies from the federal and regional budgets last year.
YABLOKO tried to contact the state media given on the list. It turned out that a number of them refused to carry out the law.
“The state media are used to praising the government and receiving budgetary money for this. The fear of publishing at least one critical word about their leadership is so big that they are ready to violate the law. If the city election commission fails to make them carry out the law, we will appeal to the central election commission and Prosecutor’s Office,” Kirill Strakhov, St.Petersburg YABLOKO Bureau member, noted.
Posted: August 11th, 2016 under Elections, Regional and Local Elections 2016.