KABUL - Afghanistan’s Electoral Media Commission (EMC), which is charged with monitoring the media reporting on and fair broadcasting of the electoral campaigns ahead of this year’s Presidential and Provincial Council elections, said today that it has made certain amendments to a set of rules governing media coverage after receiving feedback from media representatives.

Addressing a news conference in the capital, Kabul, the deputy head of EMC, Hashmatullah Radfar, said that one of the most significant additions to the Regulation on Media Activities during Elections is that media outlets will now be required to report to the regulatory body about each candidate’s monthly expenditure on their media outreach, such as money spent on campaign advertisements in television and radio broadcasts, as well as newspapers.

“We tried not to limit the media role during elections. They can cover the election according to this law,” said the head of the Commission, Ms. Farida Nekzad.

Created last month, the EMC is the media regulatory body within the Independent Election Commission (IEC) for the elections which are slated to be held on 5 April.

At the time of the EMC’s establishment, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) welcomed the appointment of the EMC “as another key step” towards the holding of credible elections, which will mark the transfer of power from one elected president to another for the first time in the country's history.

The EMC had issued the 12-Article Regulation two weeks ago, but made changes in eight Articles following feedback from media representatives.

According to the Electoral Law and the Structural Law of the IEC, each candidate is not allowed to spend more than 10 million Afghanis ($178,570) on their campaigns.

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