OSCE and CEC, appeal to the media for impartiality during the upcoming elections

2024-11-18 20:40:42, Aktualitet CNA

In Tirana, the OSCE and the Central Election Commission called on the media to find self-regulating mechanisms to be as impartial and professional as possible in covering the upcoming elections. As announced from Tirana, our correspondent, Ilirian Agolli, independent experts expressed their concern, at a joint table with the OSCE and the CEC, that there is a lack of political will to regulate the role of the media in election campaigns, where they misrepresent the ready-made materials films from the parties as well as non-transparent funding.

With the concern and the call for more professionalism and impartiality of the media in election processes, at the joint table with the CEC and experts and representatives of civil society, the head of the OSCE Presence in Albania, Ambassador Michel Tarran emphasized that in the reports of OSCE/ODIHR noted the challenges faced by the media in covering elections and campaigns, many of which, he said, are systemic and repetitive.

"We are aware of the tremendous pressures facing the media in efforts to ensure fairness, analytical depth and accuracy in reporting. To address these challenges, the OSCE Presence remains unwavering in promoting proper regulation and self-regulation of the media," said Ambassador Tarran.

Independent experts believe that one of the essential concerns during the elections is the broadcast by the media of ready-made film materials from the parties and the lack of access of journalists to the activities of the political parties, a problem this whole year and not only during the 30 days of the campaign.

The representative of the study center, SCIDEV, Bleriana Bino, tells the Voice of America that other issues to be addressed according to EU standards are the lack of transparency of the financing of party campaigns in the media, the sponsored materials on social networks during election campaign, as well as media ownership and their financing, which are part of political non-interference in editorial positions.

"The recommendations that come out of the OSCE/ODIHR as well as the recommendations from the local reports from independent organizations and those that protect the media raise the same concerns regarding the relations between the media and political parties in the electoral processes. Institutional will and political will are needed to carry forward the changes", says Mrs. Bino.

The CEC, on the other hand, has tried to help the media to be professional and impartial during the elections, but the State Commissioner of Elections, Ilirjan Celibashi, would prefer the media to have a self-regulating mechanism, to avoid debates about how one element the regulator would achieve the balance between the freedom of the media and the regulation of its activity.

"It is important to have a regulatory aspect, but when we talk about the need to regulate, there is always the fear and dilemma of not going into a super-regulation of media behavior and media activity," says Mr. Celibashi.

Civil society representatives again raised the concern that in most cases the political parties lack the will to clarify the role of the media during election campaigns on professional principles, when they are more interested in using the power of its technology to make party propaganda than to report news.

"The political class is deaf to what they advise and recommend to do. She only does what interests her. Therefore, we have no changes in our legislation on the use of tapes either. The political parties take over and carry out from the beginning to the end the reflection of their campaign through the media they have", Kristaq Kume, representative of the Institute on the Development of Electoral Systems, told Voice of America.

The Commission of Complaints and Sanctions in the CEC deals with a wide variety of problems during the elections regarding the behavior of political entities and the media.

The representative of KAS in today's meeting, Ilirjan Rusmali, emphasized that the owners of the media, with their material interests, are part of many problems during the election campaigns because of the relations they have with the authorities.

"Media owners are a very important factor when discussing the media campaign. Unfortunately, in Albania they seem to be a refractory factor. I believe that the fact that the recommendations of the OSCE/ODIHR do not move much in the positive direction, and the chapter on the media in the campaign is not modified much," said Mr. Rusmali.

Experts affirmed that the integrity of accurate information during the elections also increases the integrity of the electoral process as a whole, but often in previous campaigns, fake news has been spread, as well as there has been one-sided coverage of political activities, where the campaign itself is a challenge in online media./ VOA