Original Question:

This question was posted by ACE on behalf of Abdul Alim.

I am looking for examples of EMBs taking necessary steps to ensure a level playing field in the pre-campaign period/before the announcement of the election schedule. Any specific example or legal framework or code of conduct on this will be welcome. 

Summary of Responses:

Users offered several examples of countries with policies regulating political parties and aiming to ensure a level electoral playing field. In Ecuador, for example, no political entity can promote itself before the period officially announced by the EMB. Under the law, violators can be punished with financial sanctions and a reduction in campaign funds. 

One user explained that the electoral organization of Colombia monitors and controls party operations. Colombia also has two laws that outline the appropriate conduct of political parties. In Nigeria, the Electoral Act of 2010 provides a legal framework to regulate these issues and ensure fairness before voting. These laws appear to regulate party behavior during, but not before, the campaign period. 

The electoral management body (EMB) of Lesotho focuses on ensuring transparency in the election process, by governing campaigning and sharing information on procedures and decisions. Two representatives from each party come together to form a delegates committee, which meets regularly and discusses issues which may arise. An electoral code of conduct also guides campaigning and aims to prevent parties from engaging in harmful activities such as promoting violence or abuse of power. Again, it is not clear that these practices are in effect outside of the campaign period. 

The Electoral Commission of Zambia has published an Electoral Code of Conduct, but a user explained the difficulty of enforcing its measures and imparting penalties. Enforcement problems make a level playing field difficult to ensure. Other users agreed that complete fairness is challenging in practice, as ruling parties and well-funded individuals can often provide themselves with an advantage. They may be able to use their support staff (or even civil servants), material, funds, public spaces, and other resources to campaign in a way that opposition candidates cannot. Additionally, access to media is difficult to apportion equally in cases in which an incumbent will have more access or even a degree of control of the state or public media apparatus. This paper from the International Foundation for Electoral Systems, an ACE partner, provides an in-depth discussion of the abuse of state resources for the purpose of election campaigns.  

Finally, one user suggested that in India, pre-election announcements from the ruling party cannot be regulated as this would constitute interference with the functioning of the government. However, the Electoral Commission instructs political officials and parties on maintaining a level playing field after the announcement of elections through a model code of conduct. 

Contributing Members:

• Francisco Barrera
• Charles Obot
• Suryakrishnamurty Kottapalli
• Julius Choh Mbuh 
• Liqabang Macheli
• George Nyawa Mwadai 
• Nchimunya Michelo Silenga
• Francisco Morales Gomez

En Colombia SA, la organizacion electoral, vigila y controla el funcionamiento de los partidos, pero ademas existe la Ley 130, sobre partidos politicos y su funcionamiento, de lo cual le adjunto Link.

Tambien existe otra ley la 1475 que reglamaneta otros aspectos sobre la funcion y permanencia de los partidos.

Saludos

http://pdba.georgetown.edu/Parties/Colombia/Leyes/Ley130.pdf

Adicionalmente este estudio habla del tema de partidos en Colombia

http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_37740-1522-4-30.pdf?140514175231

The Election Commission of India has prepared a Model Code of Conduct which contains detailed instructions to political parties and administration officials on how to ensure a level playing field for all contesting candidates irrespective of whether they are from the party in power or not. However these instructions come into force only after elections are announced.

The Constitution of India clearly separates the domains of each Constitutional body. So preventing the party in power from making announcements before the elections would amount to interference in the functioning of a duly elected government. 

Moreover there is no reason for the EMB to substitute its 'wisdom' for the wisdom of the people who can themselves decide whether the announcements made just before an election are to be believed or not. If the people are considered wise enough to elect a government, then surely they can decide whether a government announcement is a pre-poll inducement or not.

EMBs maintaining level electoral playing field

The notion of a level playing ground is topical and fundamental at all the stages of the electoral process. It is one of the guarantees for the delivery of free, fair, transparent and credible elections.  However, it is a relative and subjective concept because in many situations, it is a more or less a prescriptive than a practical or practicable concept, especially in the “young” democracies. While constitutions, laws, and codes of conduct attempt to shape the edges of the concept by prescribing equal treatment of political parties or candidates by the EMB, the over bearing influence of the incumbent in most cases is insurmountable.

The public service in most young democracies is highly politicized such that most of the top government officials are cronies of the running party. During election periods, they constitute a veritable campaign force for the ruling party and there is little or nothing the EMB can do to stop these Officials who first and foremost are part of the human resources of the state and shouldn’t be used by a political party. These officials for the purposes of campaigns used their support staff, running credits, material, especially rolling stock, etc to run the campaigns of the running party, against the opposition parties and their candidates that largely rely on their personal resources, contributions/donations from militants/sympathizers, and state subventions in some cases, to fund their campaigns. Access to the media, especially the state owned media outlets, deployment on the field, funding, etc are all area where the application of this concept can never be balanced as it should be.  Even in the Western democracies, the status quo isn’t much different in as much as the incumbent say in the USA or France,  who is running for the second presidential term or campaigning for his/her party’s candidate can hadn’t be distinguished from the President on regular presidential assignment, as he for example, travels under the same conditions and circumstances.

Without undermining the efforts of EMBs towards the applicability of the concept, it may not be an overstatement to say that, the concept of a level playing ground in the electoral process on the most part remains a textbook concept, as it may hardly be fully applied.

EMBs have a very great role to play in levelling the playing field before elections. Elections are conflictual in nature because the political parties as competitors have a tendency to campaign by defaming one another and complaining about one another in their rallies. They also have a tendency to not trust the electoral process and the EMBs themselves. That is why is expedient to have a legal framework that guides their campaigning and the structures that create forum for discussion and information sharing in order to establish the common ground on which the EMB and political parties reach a common understanding on the process.

In Lesotho, the legal framework allows consultations. According to the legal framework, the EMB establishes the Party delegates committee that is comprised of political parties that are registered with the Electoral Commission, two representatives from each party. The committee meets regularly and the EMB informs the committee of everything that concerns the electoral process from the beginning to the end. In this forum, issues emanating from the administration of the electoral process, the procedures, the challenges and decisions of the commission are shared. Other than this committee there are a number of other committees; conflict resolution and management committee, media liaison, civic and voter education, logistics, security and data management, as well as monitoring. Lately, the Electoral Commission has also formed the Political parties leaders forum whereby the commission meet with leaders to share information and discuss issues of concern as a means of levelling a playing field.

Apart from that, the legal framework provides for electoral code of conduct which guides campaigning and prevents parties to promote violence, vote buying, abuse of power and defamation of character.

I believe this it what it means to level the playing field.

The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) in conjunction with its stakeholders has developed an Electoral Code of Conduct (ECC) which is meant to clearly state the dos and don'ts of all electoral players including the penalties for the said crime. What is lacking is for the law to give the EMB power to prosecute the law breakers. If a person/party/organization is found wanting, the most ECZ can do is report them to the security wings like the Police or Anti Corruption Commission. In my view, this weakens the Commission and reduces the ECC to just a book. Level playing field is a myth.

En Ecuador, Sudamerica existen normas legales que regulan el uso de recursos ecoomicos y logísticos en espacios previos a la campaña electoral, se consideran los siguientes elementos:

1.- Ninguna organización politica puede desarrollar actividades proselitistas o de promocióin de posibles candidaturas antes del periodo oficialmente convocado por el organismo electoral, en caso de incurrir en incumplimiento de estas prohibiciones se sanciona con la suspensión inmediata de la propaganda y se aplican sanciones económicas que van hasta el pago de tres veces la inversion efectuada en dicha precampaña electoral.

2.- Todos los valores invertidos en la campaña pre electoral se contabilizan para debitar del monto máximo de gasto electoral que se asigna a los candidatos, esto es que, para el caso de la presidencia de la República se asigna un gasto máximo de $ 0.15 USD por cada uno de los electores que constan en el padrón electoral, para este caso, en el registro electoral existen aproximadamente 12,000.000 de elctores y el monto m´qximo que puede gastar en la campaña es de $ 1.800.000 USD; si ha promovido la acndidatura antes del periodo electoral y el gasto asciende a $ 500.000 USD, este valor se debita de la totalidad del limite de gasto electoral quedando solamente la cantidad de $ 1. 300.000 USD.

3.- De igual manera para el resto de dignidades de elección popular: como es el caso de Parlamentarios Andinos el valor por elector es de $ 0.05 USD; para el caso de Asambleistas nacionales o provinciales la cantidad es de $ 0.30 USD por cada elector; Alcaldes la cantidad de $ 0.25 USD por elector de cada jurisdicción cantonal; etc. de estos montos de debitarán los gastos de precampaña.

4.- Toda la publicidad en medios de comunicación, radio, prensa y televisión al igual que vallas publicitarias son financiadas con recursos estatales, públicos, por tanto ninguna organización politica o candidato puede pagar por su cuenta diha publicidad, de existir este hecho antes de la campaña, es sancionado incluso el medio de comunicación.

Quizas estas normas puedan ser utilizadas en los obketivos que estan emepeñados, ya que el principio de igualdad en los procesos lectrales, es vital para darlegitimidad a los dignatarios electos.