What do you want for your money?

The Central Election Commission (CEC) on Wednesday approved the procedure for drawing lots of free airtime for participants in the presidential campaign. At the same time, there is a rule according to which parties and candidates who received less than 2% of the votes in the previous elections are deprived of the right to access free-to-air broadcasting. This restriction has existed since 2009, but the possibility of its application in practice has appeared for the first time. 3 out of 11 nominated candidates may fall under it. However, for this they still need to register, the Central Election Commission reminds.

The CEC will accept applications from registered presidential candidates wishing to take part in the free-to-air draw until February 11. The commission promises to decide on the date of the draw later, because the campaign period will begin only on February 17 (and in fact even on February 19, because the beginning falls on weekends when free airtime is not provided) and will last until 0 o’clock on March 15.

During this period, candidates will be able to use free time on five television channels – Channel One, Rossiya 1, Rossiya 24, TV Center and OTR – as well as on three radio stations – Mayak, Vesti FM ” and “Radio Russia”. In addition, 13 publications will provide print space.

Each of the all-Russian state television and radio broadcasting organizations is obliged to allocate an hour every day on weekdays for election campaigning. In total, the Central Election Commission calculated, the amount of free time on federal air is 17 hours, but it can be reduced if each candidate and the party that nominated him have more than 60 minutes. Half the time is allocated for debates, half for posting campaign materials.

However, as CEC Secretary Natalya Budarina said, during this campaign for the first time a rule may be applied, according to which candidates and parties who received less than 2% of the votes in the previous elections are deprived of access to free airtime. They will get their share of airtime and print space only for money. This restriction includes the leader of the Russian All-People’s Union party Sergei Baburin (received 0.65% of the vote in 2018), the chairman of the Communists of Russia Sergei Malinkovich (in 2018 his party nominated its then leader Maxim Suraikin for president, who received 0 .68%) and Boris Nadezhdin (from the “Civil Initiative” that nominated him in 2018 was Ksenia Sobchak, who received 1.68%).

But this is a norm that will be applied only after the circle of registered candidates has been determined, said CEC member Evgeniy Kolyushin. Let us remind you that in order to register, all candidates from non-parliamentary parties and self-nominated candidates still have to collect signatures of voters and go through verification of these autographs by the Central Election Commission. It is noteworthy that in the example of calculation, which the commission itself uses in the annex to the approved procedure for the draw, six registered candidates appear (of which one is a self-nominated and five party representatives), two of which do not have the right to free airtime and therefore must first enter into agreement with organizations television and radio broadcasting agreement on the provision of paid time. This should happen under the same conditions that have already been announced to the media for posting paid campaigning, the Central Election Commission clarifies. For example, Channel One estimated the cost of a 20-second video at between 257 thousand and 1.2 million rubles. (depending on broadcast time).

Currently, 11 people are vying for the post of head of state. The CEC has registered only three so far – Leonid Slutsky (LDPR), Nikolai Kharitonov (Communist Party of the Russian Federation) and Vladislav Davankov (New People). All of them are representatives of parliamentary parties, and they did not need to collect signatures to register as candidates. Nominees from non-parliamentary parties – in addition to the aforementioned Messrs. Malinkovich, Nadezhdin and Baburin, these are Andrei Bogdanov (Russian Party of Freedom and Justice) and Irina Sviridova (Democratic Party) – must submit at least 100 thousand autographs of voters by January 31. And self-nominated candidates – Vladimir Putin, the Russian Rada and Anatoly Batashev – need to collect at least 300 thousand signatures. (As Vladimir Mashkov, co-chairman of Mr. Putin’s headquarters, said on Wednesday, more than 2.5 million autographs have already been collected in support of the current president, which will be delivered to the Central Election Commission next week.)

As for other campaign materials, candidates can post them from the moment of their nomination, reminded the Chairman of the Central Election Commission Ella Pamfilova – of course, if they are paid for from the election fund and submitted to the Central Election Commission. According to her, now all candidates have already submitted a total of 1,075 campaign materials to the CEC. Including Vladimir Putin presented 766 printed, 5 audiovisual and 287 other materials, Anatoly Batashev – five printed and one other, the Russian Rada – four printed, Irina Sviridova – two printed and one other material, Nikolai Kharitonov – three printed propaganda materials.

Anastasia Kornya