Announcement for the media Republic of Kazakhstan

In connection with the appointment of the next elections of deputies of the Mazhilis of Parliament and maslikhats of the Republic of Kazakhstan for January 10, 2021, the Ministry of Information and Social Development of the Republic of Kazakhstan reports the following.

In accordance with the requirements of paragraph 3 of Article 28 of the Constitutional Law "On Elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan", information on the amount of payment, conditions and procedure for the provision of air and print space must be announced and published by the relevant mass media no later than five days before the start of the election campaign (not later than December 4, 2020).

The media cannot provide airtime, print space for placing, distributing campaign materials of candidates before publishing information on the amount of payment, conditions and procedure for providing air and print space (violation of this provision entails a fine for officials in the amount of 30 MCI, for legal entities - in the amount of 50 MCI).

For elections of deputies of the Mazhilis of the Parliament, information on the amount of payment, conditions and procedure for the provision of airtime and print space must be provided to the Central Election Commission, during elections of deputies of Maslikhats - to territorial election commissions.

At the same time, Chapter 11 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Republic of Kazakhstan provides for administrative responsibility for offenses that infringe on electoral rights.

At the same time, the ministry draws attention to a number of norms of the electoral legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan, often violated by the media, for violation of which administrative responsibility is provided:

1. Conducting election campaigning before the end of the registration period for a candidate, party list nominated by a political party, on election day or the day preceding it, as well as campaigning on the day of a republican referendum or the day preceding it (Article 102 of the Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan "On Administrative Offenses" ( hereinafter - the Code);
2. Publication by the mass media of campaign materials and other information knowingly discrediting the honor, dignity and business reputation of a candidate or political party, as well as refusal to provide these persons with the opportunity to publish a refutation free of charge in defense of honor, dignity and business reputation (part 2 of Article 112 Code);
3. Interrupting and commenting on the statements of candidates on television and on the radio immediately after the speech, as well as in print media in the same issue (part 3 of Article 112 of the Code);
4. Violation by the media of the procedure for publishing public opinion results, predictions of election results, and other research related to elections, namely, failure to indicate the legal entity that conducted the survey, the persons who ordered the survey and paid for it, the time of the survey, the method of collecting information, the exact wording the question, the number of respondents and the error rate of the survey results (part 1 of Article 120 of the Code).

In addition, we remind you that all publications of the media containing the election campaign of candidates for the President, deputies of the Senate, political parties that have nominated party lists of candidates for deputies of the Mazhilis, maslikhat, as well as candidates for members of other local self-government bodies must contain information on the sources of funding (paragraph 22 of the Rules for the implementation of pre-election campaigning through the media and information support for elections of the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, deputies of Parliament, maslikhats of the Republic of Kazakhstan, as well as members of other local self-government bodies).

In accordance with paragraph 2 of Article 27 of the Constitutional Law "On Elections in the Republic of Kazakhstan", pre-election campaigning begins from the end of the registration period for party lists and ends at zero o'clock local time on the day preceding election day.

Thus, the pre-election campaign will begin after 18:00 local time on December 10, 2020 and end at 00:00 local time on January 9, 2021.