KABUL - The head of Afghanistan’s Electoral Media Commission – part of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) – today called on the country’s media institutions to submit their financial reports on elections-related advertisements by the established deadline – this Wednesday – or face the possibility of having their permits to cover election-related events revoked.

At a media encounter in the capital, Kabul, today, the Electoral Media Commission’s head, Farida Nekzad, added that, so far, just two Afghan media institutions had made submissions.

According to the country’s Electoral Law, the ceiling for electoral campaign expenses for candidates in the 5 April Presidential election was 10,000,000 Afghanis, and 500,000 Afghanis for candidates in the Provincial Council elections, also held on the same date. Under the country’s Regulation on Media Activities during Elections, private media groups were obliged to submit financial reports to the Media Commission on elections-related advertisements from the April polls by 14 May or face sanctions.

Separately, Mrs. Nekzad said that out of 14 media organizations against which cash penalties had been imposed for breaking an established code of conduct in their coverage of the 5 April Presidential and Provincial Council elections, only one of them – a television channel – had paid the fine.

Earlier last month, the Media Commission had imposed fines on one radio station and 13 privately-owned television channels, ranging from 5,000 Afghanis ($86) to 75,000 Afghanis ($1,300).

Mrs. Nekzad said that if the Commission did not receive receipts showing those fines had been paid by this evening, then the fine amounts would be doubled.

“If the media organizations subject to cash penalties still do not pay the fines, even after they have been doubled, then the matters will be presented to the prosecutor’s office,” she added.

With a run-off next month a possible option between the two front-runners of the 5 April Presidential election, Mrs. Nekzad also asked that each of the front-runners’ campaign teams introduce their official spokespeople to the Media Commission, as well as media institutions, in order to avoid the appearance of unofficial representatives in election-related debates and discussions on a possible run-off poll.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has spoken out on the efforts of Afghan electoral bodies for increased transparency around the electoral process.

“The Afghan electoral institutions should be commended for their efforts to make the electoral process more transparent than ever before and be encouraged to take further proactive steps in this direction," the Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and head of UNAMA, Ján Kubiš, said in in a meeting of the Chairs of the Afghan electoral commissions with the diplomatic community in Kabul last month.