49. IN PRACTICE: What proportion of total spending reported to the oversight agency in relation to the last campaign period was spent on media by the two presidential candidates gaining the most votes?

B. MEDIA MONITORING RESULTS

The CEC allocated a significant amount of free airtime and space in state-owned media outlets, dividing it equally among contesting political parties, in compliance with its legal obligation. A total of 18 hours of free-of-charge political advertising was broadcast on state-owned television stations during the monitored period. Parties made little use of the opportunity to buy additional airtime. 

(OSCE/ODIHR Limited Election Observation Mission Final Report, Republic of Uzbekistan, Parliamentary Elections, 21 December 2014, available at http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/uzbekistan/142576?download=true accessed January 2018). 

IX. CAMPAIGN FINANCE

To enable voters to support their preferred contestant, consideration should be given to permitting direct private funding to a candidate’s campaign. Political parties are required to publish annual reports on their income, expenditures and assets as well as to submit them to the Chamber of Accounts and the Ministry of Justice. The oversight authorities’ conclusions are not published. Both the conclusions and party annual reports are submitted to the Legislative Chamber of parliament, which reviews them in a public session in the presence of invited media and interested organizations. Parties are required to publish their campaign finance income in party newspapers and on the party website within one month following the publication of election results. Parties are also required to submit to the CEC, within 20 days following the publication of results, reports on their campaign expenditures in a prescribed template, but are not required to publish these reports. The CEC has to submit financial information on the cost of administering the election and campaign expenditures to the Chamber of Accounts within 50 days of the publication of results. The lack of a requirement of parties to publish their expenditures and the CEC and the Chamber of Accounts to publish their conclusions undermines the transparency of campaign finance. To enhance transparency, consideration should be given to introducing legal requirements for periodic, timely and transparent reporting on campaign income and expenditures, including prior to election day. In addition, oversight authorities should be required to publish their conclusions. Effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions for breach of campaign finance regulations could be introduced.

(OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report, Republic of Uzbekistan, Early Presidential Election, 4 December 2016, available at http://www.osce.org/office-for-democratic-institutions-and-human-rights/elections/uzbekistan/306451?download=true accessed January 2018).