The Golkar Party accounted for the highest number of campaign advertisements in the media from March 1-11, despite the official campaign period only beginning on Sunday, a watchdog said.
Idy Muzayyad, a member of the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI), the government’s media watchdog, said on Friday that his office, working with the General Elections Commission (KPU) and the Elections Supervisory Body (Bawaslu), had counted more than a thousand political ads on TV during the 11-day period.
“We found at least 487 ads for Golkar and 378 for NasDem,” Idy said, referring to the National Democrat Party.
The party with the next highest number of ads was the Great Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra) with 305, followed by the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) with 273, the National Awakening Party (PKB) with 90, and the People’s Conscience Party with 80 ads.
The National Mandate Party (PAN) had 67 ads, while the Indonesian Justice and Unity Party (PKPI) had 42, the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) had nine and the Democratic Party had eight.
Idy said the ads had appeared on all 11 free-to-air TV stations with nationwide coverage, including TVOne and ANTV, part of the business empire of Golkar chairman and presidential candidate Aburizal Bakrie, and Metro TV, which is owned by NasDem chairman Surya Paloh.
The station carrying the most ads was TransTV with 306, followed by 291 on RCTI, 239 on TVOne and 220 on Metro.
The other stations were SCTV with 172 ads, Indosiar (194), ANTV (184), Trans7 (139), MNCTV (137), Global TV (133) and state-run TVRI with seven ads.
“The ads in question showed either the party logo, its number on the ballot, its slogan or a key party figure,” Idy said, noting that broadcasting any of these prior to the March 16-April 5 official campaign period was an electoral violation.
Daniel Zuchron, a Bawaslu official, said his office would work closely with the KPI and KPU to address the violations.
“The parties must know that administrative and criminal violations of electoral law will be acted on,” he said.
He declined to say what sanctions, if any, the offending parties would face.
Observers had long predicted that television stations whose owners had political interests would be used as platforms for the respective parties.
These include TVOne, ANTV and Metro TV, as well as the MNC Group, Indonesia’s biggest media company, which owns RCTI, MNCTV and Global TV. MNC’s chief is Hary Tanoesoedibjo, the vice presidential candidate from Hanura.
Source/Fuente: http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/watchdog-flags-political-tv-ads/
