Consensus on viewing time to political parties during electoral campaign

The commission in charge of the use of public audiovisual media during the electoral campaign adopted by consensus Thursday a number of proposals on the viewing time to be imparted to political parties running for the legislative elections of September 27.

The meeting, held under the chairmanship of Moroccan minister of culture and communication, Mohamed Achaari, convened to grant to five political parties a 9 minute viewing time each and to ten parties a viewing time of 7 minutes. These parties will have the possibility to air their electoral messages three times on the national radio and on the two TV channels, TVM and 2M, during the electoral campaign.

Eleven parties will be granted a 5 minute viewing time twice, if their candidacies cover 50 percent of constituencies. The parties whose candidacies cover only 30 percent of candidacies will have a single 5 minute viewing time.

Besides these viewing times, the radio and TV channels will cover the rallies held by the parties during the campaign and will air interviews with members of these parties at the main TV news bulletins.

Each party will be free to use the language of its choice during its viewing time and each party will be granted a 5 minute viewing time on the Amazigh radio.

Political parties will also be free to produce their own spots or jingles either at the studios of the public institutions or by resorting to the services of a private agency. The spots duration should not exceed 20 seconds.

Candidates to the forthcoming polls started filing their nomination papers this September 6. The nomination papers filing deadline expires on September 13 at midday.