ELECTION LAW JOURNAL
Volume 11, Number 4, 2012
# Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089/elj.2012.1145
The Move Toward State-Run Mass Media Electoral Campaigns
in Latin America: An Evaluation of the First Implementation
in the 2011 Argentine Presidential Elections
Maria Page and Julia Pomares
ABSTRACT
Over the last few years, in an attempt to mitigate parties’ unequal access to mass media during election
campaigns, several Latin American countries decided to increase the public funding of election campaigns
vis-a-vis private sources. Among them, four countries (Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Ecuador) moved to
an exclusively state-funded regime of mass media election campaigns. Argentine legislation was first
implemented for the 2011 presidential elections. According to new campaign finance legislation, among
other changes, the buying and selling of electoral advertisements on radio and TV are prohibited. Parties
and candidates may only use advertising allocated by the state to disseminate their campaign messages.
Based on a large media monitoring scheme conducted during open primaries and general elections, this
article presents an evaluation of the first implementation of this new law in Argentina. In all, approximately
7,000 election ads on radio and TV were recorded and analyzed. The data show that the broadcasting of
electoral advertisements in the monitored media complied with the stipulated distribution by the new
law and resulted in more equal access of candidates to mass media. Also, government advertising was relatively limited during the two weeks prior to the election. However the weak regulation of the use of state
resources for election campaigns can provide an extra advantage for incumbents and a source of inequity in
political competition. This danger increases in a state-run regime of mass media campaigns and in the context of a dramatic increase of government advertising.
The Law 26571 for the Democratization of Political Representation, Electoral Transparency and
Equity, proposed by the executive government and
approved in December 2009, introduced important
changes to the rules governing electoral competition
in Argentina. Since the return to democracy in 1983,
it is the largest reform to election administration
aside from the 1994 constitutional reform. Among
Maria Page is coordinator of the Politics and Policy Program at
the Center for the Implementation of Public Policies Promoting
Equity and Growth (CIPPEC). Julia Pomares is director of the
Politics and Policy Program at CIPPEC. We would like to thank
Martı́n Astarita and Paula Clerici for their contribution to this
research project and Luciana Polischuk, Victoria Quayat,
Juan Ignacio Sapia, and Anastasia Peralta for their valuable
research assistance. The media monitoring scheme was
designed by Professor Carlos Gervasoni (Torcuato Di Tella
University, Argentina) and conducted by a team of graduate students under his and Arturo Fitz Hebert’s supervision. We
express immense gratitude to Gervasoni for his excellent
work. This research is part of a broader project conducted by
the think tank CIPPEC (Centro de Implementación de Polı´ticas
Públicas para la Equidad y el Crecimiento/Center for the
Implementation of Public Policies Promoting Equity and
Growth) and funded by the German Embassy in Buenos Aires
and the Partnership for Transparency Fund (PTF). See also
Carlos Gervasoni and Arturo Fitz Herbert, ‘‘Monitoreo de la
publicidad electoral, Elecciones 2011’’ (CIPPEC, Documento
de Trabajo, 2011). We would also like to thank Helen Laugher,
who translated this article.
1. INTRODUCTION
532
MASS MEDIA AND THE 2011 ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
533
the most important changes, the law introduced open
primary national elections which are mandatory for
both parties and voters. According to the new law,
primaries must be held simultaneously for all parties.
Candidates for presidency and vice-presidency are
selected in mandatory primaries as well as those competing to become national senators and deputies. In
order to compete for the general election, each party
list needs to get 1.5% of votes at the primary election.
The law also changed rules regarding the creation and
survival of political parties in an attempt to reduce the
astonishing amount of 697 political parties1 registered
at the time of the law’s enactment. Finally, new legislation also made important changes to campaign
financing which is the focus of this work.
This article provides an evaluation of the first
implementation of the new electoral system for
broadcast advertising during the 2011 presidential
elections. It is mainly based on a large media monitoring of electoral advertisements in broadcast
media affected by the regulation of Law 26571
(television and radio) conducted during the primary
and general elections. The monitoring also covered
the major national newspapers to assess the extent
to which restrictions on broadcast advertisement
encouraged greater use of advertisement in print
media. A series of interviews with party leaders
was also conducted in order to capture their perceptions of the performance of the new system.
The article is organized as follows. The following
section presents an overview of the Argentine system of campaign finance. After introducing the system in historical fashion, it describes the new
system from a regional perspective, specifically by
comparing Argentina, Mexico, and Brazil. The
third section focuses on the media monitoring
effort, presenting the methodology and main findings. The fourth section looks at the perceptions
of party leaders and compares their views to the
monitoring results. The final section concludes by
providing some recommendations for further implementation in state-funded election campaigns.
cess of democratization since 1983 created
favorable conditions for promoting significant
reforms in this field. Indeed, the continuing impulse
to regulate political finance in Argentina is the
result of the essentially paradoxical situation in
which political parties find themselves: democratic
continuity has established them as the key players,
yet it does not prevent them from being viewed
with mistrust by the general public. It is possible
to identify some key moments from the return
of democracy to the present that contribute to understanding the current legal framework for financing political parties and election campaigns in
Argentina.
The first key moment took place in 1985 with the
enactment of the Organic Law on Political Parties
(Law 23298). Among the highlights of this legislation was the creation of the Permanent Party Fund,
determined by the Budget Act; this specified the
kind of private contributions that parties were
allowed to receive and imposed different accountability mechanisms. Electoral campaign funds
were to be distributed among the parties that presented candidates for election according to the following criteria: 30% distributed equally among all
competing parties and the remaining 70% distributed proportionally according to the votes received
in the prior legislative elections.
The second key moment took place in 1994 when
political parties received constitutional recognition.
The constitution also established that the state
should contribute to the economic support of parties’ activities and training of their leaders. It also
forced parties to make public the origins and destinations of contributions and set spending limits.
The third important moment was in May 2002
when the National Congress sanctioned the Law
on Political Parties and Election Campaign Financing (Law 25600). Among other things, this law set
new spending limits and mechanisms of accountability and transparency clauses. It also reformed
penalty provisions. Private funds could be provided
2. BRIEF OVERVIEW OF THE ARGENTINE
CAMPAIGN FINANCE REGIME
1
Campaign finances in Argentina since 1983
Although political finance regulations in Argentina date from the mid-twentieth century, the pro-
According to Argentine legislation, there are two types of
political parties: district parties (partidos de distrito) and
national parties. Although only national parties can compete
for presidential elections, both types of parties can compete
for national legislative elections. That is why some national parties also have a correlate at the district level. That means that the
figure of 697 parties includes, for example, each of the 24 district-level Radical Parties.
534
either by legal or natural persons. Only two elections after this change, the executive government
proposed a new law (Law 26215) sanctioned in
December 2006 that made some changes to the
2002 legislation. Political parties were allowed
to purchase advertising in radio and TV as usual.
The novelty introduced by this law was that third
party purchase of electoral advertisements was
completely banned. Only those politically and economically responsible for the political parties or
alliances were permitted to purchase advertising in
electoral campaigns.
In 2009, Néstor Kirchner, who had been president from 2003–2007, was defeated by businessman
Francisco De Narvaez in the race for national deputy in the province of Buenos Aires (the largest
district in the country). De Narvaez was not a
renowned candidate, but he became a salient public
figure after an impressive media campaign in the
months prior to the 2009 election. This competitive
election was perceived as an important factor in the
decision of the executive government to send to
Congress (two months afterwards) a legislative proposal aimed at reducing the influence of money in
politics. Following a regional trend, the scheme
moves towards a predominantly public financing
scheme and adopts more equal criteria for distribution of campaign contributions and broadcast time.
It is important to note that, as a consequence of
Argentine electoral federalism, this new regime
does not extend to provincial and local elections.
Since the vast majority of provinces do not yet regulate party finances, the national regime coexists in
almost all districts with a legal loophole that limits
its effectiveness.2 The regulation of this law does
allow for the implementation of the same system
at the provincial level when simultaneous elections
are at stake.
How the new publicly funded system works
One of the main goals of the reform was to
reduce asymmetries among parties in terms of
resources to conduct election campaigns. For this
purpose, the law introduced two main changes: a
ban on contributions from legal entities (private
companies, for example) and a ban on purchasing
broadcast advertisements during election campaigns. The reform introduced by Law 26571
attempts to reduce the burden of private resources
in mass media campaigns. According to the reports
PAGE AND POMARES
of the last election prior to the reform (the 2009
legislative elections), around 85% of declared campaign spending by parties corresponded to broadcast advertising.
The first ban applies to campaign funds but not to
regular funding (between elections). As a consequence, only individuals can make campaign contributions. The funding regime also moves away from
the mixed model of party finances to a scheme with
a higher prevalence of public resources. The law
increased the proportion of public funding to be distributed equally among all party lists from 30% to
50%. The remaining 50% (previously 70%) is distributed according to the votes obtained by each
party in the same race in the last election. These criteria for distributing public contributions for campaign expenses are more egalitarian than those
used in Mexico and Brazil, where the law establishes that the campaign expense reimbursement
(in the first case) and the distribution of public contributions for the campaign (in the second) are to be
computed in proportion to the electoral performance
of each party. A ban on corporate donations is also
present in Mexico. In contrast, Brazil allows contributions by corporate entities, but there is no specific
public contribution to campaigns. Instead, the parties use a proportion of the Party Fund resources
otherwise received from the election authority for
their routine functioning. Furthermore, unlike Mexico and Argentina, in Brazil anonymous contributions are permitted provided they do not exceed a
maximum amount.
The second change introduced by the new funding regime is the prohibition of mass media advertisements by parties or any other entity, on which
this article focuses. Parties and electoral coalitions
can only use the radio and television advertisements
allotted by the election authority during the campaign period prior to the primaries, the general election, and eventually the presidential run-off. Two
federations in the region are governed by a system
similar to Argentina’s. In both Mexico and Brazil,
buying advertisements for electoral purposes is prohibited. In each case, the election authority allocates
free broadcast time to political parties during the
electoral campaigns.
2
In 16 out of 24 provinces there is no regulation of party finances at the provincial and municipal level.
MASS MEDIA AND THE 2011 ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
Argentine legislation establishes that broadcast
media must yield 10% of their total air time between
7 am and 7 pm, during the campaign, for electoral
advertising. In line with the formula for distributing
public funding, 50% of this air time is also distributed equally among competing parties and the
remaining 50% is distributed according to electoral
performances at the last election. These criteria differ from the rules in Mexico and Brazil. In Mexico,
30% of advertising is shared equally and the
remaining 70% is shared according to the percentage of votes obtained by each party in the previous
election. In Brazil, a third is divided equally and two
thirds are divided in proportion to the number of
representatives of each party in the Chamber of
Deputies.
It is important to note that the restrictions on
advertising do not apply to the Internet, newspapers,
and other print media. The new system does not regulate non-traditional advertising (i.e., advertising
which is broadcast outside advertising spaces) for
electoral purposes. In Mexico, by contrast, the electoral coverage of TV programs during campaigns is
audited and the issue became very salient in its 2012
presidential election. In Brazil, restrictions on
advertising also reach campaigns on the Internet.
Systems which rely mostly on public financing
seek to equalize the conditions of competition and
allow smaller parties—which generally are funded
almost entirely by public contributions—access to
mass media. Legislators supporting the initiative
also claim that the new Argentine regime aims to
reduce the influence of big donors in policy decisions and the use of money from illegal activities
in political campaigns. On the other hand, opponents of this system claim that it could create incentives for the creation and survival of parties with the
sole aim of capturing public funds. The main argument against the law centers on the discretionary
use of state resources.
The main challenge to highly regulated systems
is the implementation of effective controls and
effective sanctions to prevent the increase in undeclared funds and to ensure the proper implementation of the system. In Argentina the election
authority responsible for the allocation of party
funding is the Dirección Nacional Electoral
(DINE), a permanent office within the Ministry of
Interior. According to the Argentine National Electoral Code, passed in 1972, the conduct of elections
is the co-responsibility of the Ministry of Interior
535
(the DINE is also in charge of conducting the preliminary tally of results) and the judiciary. The
Code establishes that a federal judge in each province acts as electoral judge until an electoral justice
is created. These judges are responsible for several
tasks regarding the conduct of elections and act as
first-level appellate judges. However, the creation
of a specialized electoral judiciary has not yet
taken place, so the federal judges continue to play
this role. Hence, the main election authority consists
of federal judges overseeing 24 permanent electoral
offices (secretarı́as), one in each province.3 The
National Electoral Court of Appeals or Cámara
Nacional Electoral (CNE) was created in 1971
under the last military government. It resolves conflicts that arise in either national or concurrent elections, and is also in charge of the National Register
of Voters and the Register of Party Affiliations.
As in the United States, election administration
in Argentina is highly decentralized. The first
Argentine Constitution (1853–60) clearly established that each constituent unit (referred to as
‘‘pre-existing units’’) enjoys the autonomy to dictate
its own electoral and political institutions, as long as
they respect republican and representative principles. Each constituent unit is responsible for organizing and regulating elections at the sub-national
level.4 As at the national level, several provinces
have a structure dominated by the judiciary; a few
provinces have hybrid systems composed of judiciary and legislative members. Having said this,
provinces can adhere to the Law on Simultaneous
Elections and hold provincial elections concurrent
with national ones, in which case the national election authorities are responsible for both elections.
The decree of the executive government enacting
the 2009 finance reforms established that provinces
holding their provincial elections simultaneously to
national ones can adhere to the new broadcast
advertising rules for electoral campaigns.
Since allocation of public funds is the responsibility of DINE, the move to only state-funded
mass media campaigns resulted in increased powers
for the Ministry of Interior. The new system means
3
During election periods, a temporary collegiate authority is set
up ( Junta Electoral), usually composed of judges of different
jurisdictions, to deal with administrative issues in the electoral
process.
4Provincial election authorities are in charge of organizing and
controlling local elections.
536
that most of the resources the parties can lawfully
set aside to finance campaigns are administered by
DINE. The institutional design employed in Argentina differs from that adopted in Mexico, where
there is a campaign financing system similar to
the one introduced by Law 26571. In Mexico, all
the direct and indirect public contributions are distributed by the Instituto Federal Electoral, a public
agency, autonomous and independent from government, which is responsible for the preparation, organization, management, and monitoring of national
elections. In Brazil, electoral administration and
oversight are both the responsibility of a quasi-judicial agency: the advertising space is assigned and
monitored by the Electoral Tribunal when national
elections are at stake and by regional courts for
state and local elections.
There were no substantial changes in the regime
of sanctions for non-compliance with campaign
finance provisions. For political parties, punishment
is limited to the suspension of public funds. According to the 2006 Law on Campaign Finances (replacing 2002 Law and amended by 2009 Law 26571,
each party must nominate a financial agent responsible for the campaign, who may be sanctioned by
the removal of her political rights for up to 10
years.5 With regard to primary elections, penalties
are foreseen for both the candidate and for the person who is financially responsible for the campaign.
The primacy of fines over sanctions against candidates in the Argentine legislation contrasts starkly
with Brazil and Mexico. For instance, in Brazil
the penalties for candidates are very severe. If it is
found that a candidate received funds unlawfully
or illegally incurred expenses, his candidacy is cancelled or, if he was elected, his office is revoked.
The new Argentine funding regime was not
accompanied by stronger regulation of government
advertising or the use of public resources for partisan purposes. Spending by the national government
on advertising, according to a report by civil society organization Poder Ciudadano (the Argentine
chapter of Transparency International), increased
significantly over the last decade. Whereas in
2000 government advertising accounted for 16 million pesos, in 2010 this figure was 1,224 million
pesos.6 According to data from 2010, the sum of
resources invested by the national and provincial
governments rendered governments as a whole the
leading advertiser in the country, double the amount
spent by the second-largest advertiser (Unilever).7
PAGE AND POMARES
The national government alone accounts for 9% of
the total amount spent in the whole media system.8
This situation might create an imbalance, under the
new campaign finance regime, in favor of the ruling
party. The use of government advertising during the
campaign is only prohibited when it contains ‘‘elements that induce a specific electoral choice’’ and
so far this has been difficult to prove. The blackout
on government advertising was extended from 7 to
15 days prior to the election, but this still does not
cover the entire campaign period. The National
Electoral Code disqualifies those who authorize or
consent to government advertising in violation of
the prohibition from pursuing public office. Argentine legislation differs from Mexican and Brazilian
restrictions on government advertising during campaigns periods. In Mexico, a government advertisement cannot be issued during the election campaign
except when it is related to information on the electoral process or in case of emergency like a natural
catastrophe, epidemic, etc.). In Brazil, advertising
of government initiatives, public works, and information campaigns by any level of government are
banned during the whole campaign period. The
sanction for those who violate this prohibition is
the annulment of their candidacy.
A last important difference in regulation among
the three countries discussed has to do with campaign duration. The 2009 Argentine reform reduced
the campaign period for general elections (legislative and presidential) to 35 days. Prior to this
reform, the duration was 60 days for legislative
elections and 90 days for presidential elections.
The duration of primary election campaigns was
set at 30 days. Outside these time limits, ‘‘any activity by political parties, candidates or third parties,
through acts of mobilization, outreach, meetings,
presentation of government initiatives and projects,
5
Prior to the 2009 reform, the president of the party was also
responsible for party finances and subject to the denial of political rights.
6
Due to currency devaluation, this nominal increase in spending
should be pondered. Based on estimates of the National Bureau
of Statistics (INDEC), expenditures on government advertisement rose from USD 16 million in 2000 to USD 88 million
in 2010, an increase of 449%.
7
Martin Becerra. ‘‘Quid Pro Quo. La publicidad oficial en la
Argentina y sus múltiples facetas.’’ Poder Ciudadano (2011,
Buenos Aires), p. 31, available at < http://poderciudadano.org/
wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/InformeFinalPublicidadOficiaArgentina20111.pdf > .
8
Ibid.
MASS MEDIA AND THE 2011 ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
or debates, aimed at capturing the political will of
the electorate’’ are prohibited.9 Thus, the reform
introduces a more comprehensive approach to
defining the scope of electoral campaigns, previously defined as ‘‘all activities undertaken with
the purpose to promote or discourage the uptake
of the vote for or against candidates for national
office.’’ In a similar sense, the period allowed for
electoral advertising in the mass media is reduced
to 25 days before the general election (down from
32 days) and set at 20 days for primaries. This
ban includes the broadcasting of images and
names of candidates for national office whether
through the mass media (television, radio, and Internet), street ads, print media, telephones, or sporting
performances.
There was heated debate in the legislature about
the shortening of the duration of campaigns. There
are trade-offs in setting time limits to electoral campaigns. On the one hand, it is assumed that shorter
timeframes for campaigns help put competitors on
more equal footing since they reduce the advantages
of those who have more resources. Additionally,
they reduce overall campaign spending and might
mitigate voter fatigue resulting from over-exposure
to electoral advertising. On the downside, some
deputies argue that shorter campaigns are difficult
to enforce and disadvantage small parties who
need more effort to set the agenda and introduce
their candidates. Furthermore, the weak regulation
of government advertising was seen as an important
potential imbalance. Campaigns in Argentina are
now shorter than those in Mexico and Brazil. In
Mexico the campaign period for presidential elections is 90 days and 60 days for legislative elections.
In Brazil the campaign period is set to 45 days for
both legislative and presidential elections.
3. THE MEDIA MONITORING PROJECT
The monitoring methodology
During the 2011 elections, we monitored the first
implementation of the new state-funded broadcast
regime to analyze whether the parties involved complied with the law in order to assess its functioning
and to make recommendations to improve its implementation. The main monitoring activity was tracking the advertisements in a sample of broadcast
media regulated by Law 26571 (i.e., television and
537
radio). We also analyzed political advertising in
print media (morning newspapers) to determine
whether, and to what extent, restrictions on audiovisual advertising encourage greater use of unregulated media advertising and promotions. In addition,
we conducted in-depth interviews with members of
the political parties, officials responsible for the
law’s implementation, and managers in various
media outlets.
Monitoring focused on (a) the electoral advertising run in accordance with Law 26571 (26571
advertisements), (b) non-traditional advertising—
i.e., promotions outside of formal advertisement
slots10—(NTP advertising), and (c) advertising by
national, provincial, and municipal governments
(i.e., government advertisement). The monitoring
did not cover the entire campaign, but included
three weeks: the week prior to the primary election,
and the two weeks of campaigning leading up to the
general election. In both cases, it also covered the
48 hours prior to polling day (the blackout period
when campaigning is closed).
The monitoring of the primary campaign
detected 2,240 instances of 26571 advertisements
(61,982 seconds), while for the general elections
3,567 advertisements were counted (120,408 seconds). On average, in both campaigns, 84.7% of
the registered political advertising corresponded to
26571 advertising. The rest represented government
advertisement, NTP advertising, or advertising for
candidates at sub-national level (provincial or
municipal) that mentioned national candidates.
Monitoring results
In order to analyze the distribution of broadcast
time among political parties, it is important to
briefly introduce the election at stake. On October
23, 2011, Argentines went to the polls to elect the
president, 130 national deputies, and 24 senators
as well as provincial and local representatives in
several districts. In the lower chamber, seats are
allocated using a D’Hondt proportional representation formula with closed party lists of effective magnitude ranging from three (in small districts) to 35 in
the largest district (Buenos Aires). Each district also
9
Law 19.945, article 64.
According to the law regulating media enterprises (Law
26.522), this practice is illegal. < http://www.infoleg.gov.ar/
infolegInternet/anexos/155000-159999/158649/norma.htm > .
10
538
elects three senators, two for the majority and one
for the minority. Every two years, two-thirds of
the districts (eight districts) elect three senators for
a six-year mandate. Ten party lists presented candidates for the presidency and vice-presidency in the
open primaries. Out of them, seven made their
way into the general elections (by receiving more
than 1.5% of the votes). Only one of the three parties that did not pass the threshold had a high-profile
candidate. The other two parties were relatively
unknown to the general public prior to the elections.
None of the ten parties or electoral coalitions who
competed for presidential primaries presented
more than one candidate. The overwhelming support obtained in the primaries by the incumbent
Frente para la Victoria (FPV or Front for Victory
party)—President Cristina Kirchner’s party, which
attracted over 50% of the votes—left almost no
doubts about the outcome of the general election.
The electoral result of the presidential primary,
together with the fact that there was no internal
competition within party lists, turned the general
election into a mere compulsory survey in the
eyes of the public. The remaining parties were
only concerned about securing a second place that
could establish them as the FPV’s main opposition.
The presidential election results are presented in
Table 1 below.
Primaries also cut short the number of lists for the
congressional representative races. In the Province
of Buenos Aires, out of the 13 party lists that competed in the open primaries, only seven received
enough votes to compete in the general elections.
In the City of Buenos Aires, by contrast, the effect
of the primaries was less strong. Out of 12 party
lists competing in August, 11 made their way to
the general elections in October. Again, the parties
that were eliminated were not well known. Probably
as an effect of the primaries, the number of party
lists competing for the lower chamber, which
exploded in the aftermath of the 2001 crisis, reached
the lowest level since the return to democracy in
1983.11 The FPV party won both districts each of
the primary and general elections.
Since half of the allocation of broadcast time
among parties for legislative elections is decided
on the basis of the prior election result in each district, it is impossible to precisely estimate the
amount of time each party should get in the sampled
media. Each party might decide to concentrate time
in some of the media to the detriment of others.
PAGE AND POMARES
Table 1. Law No. 26571 Advertising Distribution
by Party; Primaries and General Elections, in %
FPV
UDESO
Coalición Cı´vica-ARI
Proyecto Sur
Fte. Amplio Progresista
Fte. Izq. y Trabajadores
Fte. Popular
Compromiso Federal
Del Campo Popular
PRO
Others
Primaries
General Elections
19.90%
18.60%
14.90%
10%
9.70%
8.10%
7.90%
5.40%
2.60%
1.60%
1.20%
26.10%
18.60%
15.80%
0.65%
13.25%
8.15%
8.05%
6.80%
0%
2.10%
0.65%
Source: Table based on data from document by Gervasoni and Fitz
Herbert (2011).
Because the effort required to use an advertising
slot during a popular broadcast was the same as
the effort to use it in a less-known one (manufacturing the advertisement and uploading it to the DINE
software), many political parties decided to use only
their advertising allocation where they could reach
most of the audience (channels with the largest ratings were preferred). This strategic use of advertising meant that only 40% of the free broadcast time
was actually used by candidates during primaries.
During the general elections the proportion of allocated time actually used by political parties rose to
60%.12
Beyond these limitations, we compare the results
of prior elections with the actual broadcast time.
Table 1 shows the distribution of 26571 advertisements and Tables 2, 3, and 4 show the results of
2007 presidential and 2009 legislative elections
that were used to allocate advertising time among
competing parties in 2011.
As shown in Table 1, the incumbent FPV party
got the largest advertising coverage in each campaign. This is because the distribution of advertising
time is proportional to the number of votes received
in the previous presidential elections. Meanwhile,
the center-right PRO party (Propuesta Republicana
or Republican Proposal, which governs the City of
Buenos Aires) only received free broadcast time
for the legislative campaign since the party decided
not compete for the presidency. The same was true
11
Julia Pomares, Maria Page, and Gerardo Scherlis, ‘‘La Primera Vez de las Primarias’’ (CIPPEC, Documento de Polı́ticas
Públicas 97, 2011), available at < http://www.cippec.org/
Main.php?do = documentsDoDownload&id = 530 > .
12
Dirección Nacional Electoral (DINE), Interior Ministry.
MASS MEDIA AND THE 2011 ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
539
Table 4. 2007 Presidential Election Results, in %
Table 2. 2009 Legislative Election Results
(City of Buenos Aires), in %
Votes (%)
Party List
PRO
Proyecto Sur
Acuerdo Cı´vico y Social
FPV
Diálogo por la Ciudad
Socialista
Autodeterminación y Libertad
Others
Total
Votes
31.19
24.29
19.14
11.61
3.16
2.36
2.06
4.57
(1,819,907)
Source: Ministry of the Interior.
for the left-wing Proyecto Sur or Project South
party. Hence, an interesting side effect of the new
regime is that it ‘‘punishes’’ parties that do not compete for all races as well as those who compete outside their party of origin or candidates nominated by
parties with no previous electoral performance. This
was the case with former President Eduardo
Duhalde. He decided not to compete in the Peronist
primaries but to run as the candidate of Unión Popular or Popular Union party with no genuine political life (and no votes at the last presidential
election). The party received only the proportion
of free time equally allocated to all parties.
The comparison between the results of previous
elections and 26571 advertisements indicates that
the broadcast of 26571 advertisements in the
media we monitored fulfilled the criteria of distribution specified by law, during both the primary and
general elections. This finding holds for both the
total monitored media and for each separate type
of media (free-to-air television, cable television,
and AM and FM radio). Fig. 1 shows the coverage
by time slot.
Another important finding of the media monitoring has to do with the practice of promotions outside
advertising slots (NTP). During the monitored
FPV (Cristina Fernandez)
UNA (Roberto Lavagna)
Coalición Cı´vica-ARI
FREJULI (Rodriguez Saa)
Socialista Autentico
Recrear
Others
45.28
16.91
23.04
7.64
1.58
1.43
4.12
Source: Ministry of the Interior.
period, there were no systematic efforts by the candidates and parties to use NTP as a way to bypass
the prohibition on purchasing advertising privately.
However, we did record 6 cases of NTP favoring
presidential candidates Cristina Fernandez de
Kirchner and Alberto Rodriguez Saa. The monitoring also detected some cases of longer than usual
coverage of speeches by candidates. The candidate
who most benefited from this type of coverage
before the primaries was Eduardo Duhalde. During
the monitored period prior to the general elections,
there were 21 cases of NTP, 15 of which occurred
during the week before the election. Almost all
the speeches were broadcast on the state-run TV
channel (TV Publica). However, this phenomenon
had a marginal impact on the distribution of time
on air among parties. To the extent that the new
regime allowed access to radio and television for
all parties competing for the races, the new regime
Table 3. 2009 Legislative Election Results
(Province of Buenos Aires), in %
Party List
Votes
PRO
FPV
Acuerdo Cı´vico y Social
Nuevo Encuentro
Fte. De la Izquierda y los Trabajadores
Anticapitalista y Socialista
Others
34.68
32.18
21.46
5.53
1.43
Source: Ministry of the Interior.
4.72
FIG. 1. Law No. 26571 advertisement in both primaries and
general elections, by timeframe.
540
managed to reduce the asymmetries among parties
in terms of access to resources from private sources
to fund their election campaigns.
The incidence of total government advertisement
time, relative to the total 26571 advertising time
26571 on radio and television, was relatively low.
The total government advertising air time during
the broadcasts monitored prior to the primary elections was 6.7% of all 26571 advertising time (excluding any NTP). As shown in Fig. 2, during the
period before the general election this percentage
rose to 8.2%.
During the primary campaign, the national government was responsible for 55% of all government
advertising recorded in the four analyzed types of
media (free-to-air television, cable television, and
AM and FM radio). On average, national government advertising increased to 65% during the general election campaign and 69% during the final
week of that election. Well behind were the government of the province of Buenos Aires (also under
FPV), which hovered around 10% in both periods
monitored, the government of the City of Buenos
Aires, with 10% for primaries and a marked
decrease to 3% during the general campaign (in
this district there were no simultaneous local elections) and the government of San Luis (the district
of Rodriguez Saa, one of the presidential candidates), with 10% during the primary period moni-
FIG. 2. Law No. 26571 advertisement and government advertisement broadcasted during campaigns for primaries and general election, in seconds.
PAGE AND POMARES
FIG. 3. Government advertisement registered in monitored
media during general elections, by type of government and
type of media, in %.
tored, and 0.5% in the campaign before the
general election. See Fig. 3 below.
When narrowed down to advertisements on freeto-air television (i.e., the medium with the highest
audience), we found that about 90% of government
advertising during both campaigns belonged to the
national government. In general, government advertising took place in the afternoon (time slots from 4
pm to 8 pm), but in the week immediately prior to
the general election government advertising focused
on time slots in the mornings and the evenings
(8 pm to midnight). In contrast, 26571 advertising
was concentrated, in accordance with the law, on
slots with smaller television audiences. Fig. 4
below shows how government advertising, local
electoral advertising, and prolonged coverage of
speeches increased Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s exposition in the media.
Around half the government advertising run
nationwide was for information campaigns (for
example, advertisements about organ donation)
while 40% was for the promotion and dissemination
of government actions or public works programs,
with greater potential for electoral influence (for
example, advertising about the universal child allowance program Asignación Universal por Hijo). Such
advertising during an election surely violates the
provisions of the law.
During the campaign there were also several
advertisements about government actions that
resulted in a violation of the law. At the national
MASS MEDIA AND THE 2011 ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
FIG. 4. Law No. 26571 advertisement and total advertisement by presidential candidate. General elections, in %.
level, the President announced an increase to the
retirement and pension system and the launch of a
bi-national train. Both announcements were made
at the expense of the ban established by the electoral
law. The same prohibition rules, as provided by
Decree 445/2011, applied to the provincial governments in those districts conducting elections simultaneously with the national election. We registered
several violations from provincial governors.
Electoral advertising in the print media
Although its use is not regulated by the new
regime, the monitoring of advertising in newspapers
revealed a clear dominant trend in favor of the opposition parties: 84% of the 51 ads found in the primaries’ campaigns were messages that mentioned four
main opposition forces. The difference between the
opposition parties and the incumbent FPV—which
541
positioned fifth with regard to its presence in print
advertising—is due to the absence of advertisements in two national newspapers (Clarin and La
Nacion) which are in an open opposition and economic conflict with the national government. In
turn, the ban on purchasing broadcast time seems
to have turned the opposition parties to print
media advertising to try to offset the increased visibility of the ruling party candidates on television.
Electoral advertising in print media declined
significantly during the campaign before the general
election: only 24 notices were detected, 23 of which
were published during the week before the general
election. FPV was the only national party that significantly increased its participation in this second
stage. The decline in the presence of opposition
forces can be explained by the outcome of the primaries, which might have limited their ability to
raise funds and their incentive to continue making
campaign expenditures.
Government advertisements had a very prominent role in the print media during both periods.
Again, the main advertiser was the national government; the governments of the City of Buenos Aires
and the Province of Buenos Aires advertised far
less.
Finally, our monitoring shows that the intent
of the law to close campaigns prior to the primary
election and general election days was fulfilled:
monitoring did not record any 26571 advertising
or cases of NTP during the blackout periods. However, during these days, government advertising was
detected. The first day of the electoral ban prior
to primaries saw 15 advertisements in broadcast
media: seven for the Province of Buenos Aires,
four for the national government, two for the
City of Buenos Aires, and two referring to local
governments.
Enforcement mechanisms
Although it is not the focus of this article, some
words are in order with regard to enforcement
mechanisms. The law does provide a mechanism
for correcting violations or defaults in an expeditious manner but only after a complaint from a political party. That is to say that the new regime does
not foresee any kind of official media monitoring
and relies on parties’ controls and complaints for
identifying violations and correcting them during
the campaign period. After elections the National
542
Electoral Court of Appeals performs ex post controls on campaign advertising and applies penalties
if due.
The main weakness of this control and enforcement scheme seems to result from the fact that parties do not seem to have enough incentives for
controlling campaign advertisement broadcasting
and complaining against eventual violations.
According to our interviews, the software source
code of the system used to allocate ads was made
available to the parties but no one requested it.
The parties also failed to audit the draw for the allocation of free broadcast time. In fact, the center-left
Frente Amplio Progresista or Broad Progressive
Front (the opposition party that finished in second
place in the presidential election) was mistakenly
omitted in the draw for the Province of Buenos
Aires’ gubernatorial race and the omission was
only noticed when results of the draw were reported
(afterwards the mistake was corrected). Moreover,
the vast majority of party leaders acknowledged
the parties have not been able to develop any form
of monitoring to verify the effective transmission
of their ads.
4. THE PERCEPTIONS OF PARTY
LEADERS ABOUT THE NEW SYSTEM
According to our interviews with party leaders,
there is a general consensus that the 2009 legislation
brought an improvement in terms of equal access to
mass media. For several small parties, the new
regime meant the possibility of access to radio
and television for the first time ever. However,
what chiefly concerned the opposition parties was
the limited regulation of government advertising
at the national, provincial, and municipal levels.
This, they argue, is an advantage for the ruling
party because there is no way to compensate, due
to the prohibition on privately purchased broadcast
time.
At the same time, most party leaders noted that
the management of the new system was a challenge,
in terms of technical skills, time, and efforts, which
they had not anticipated. In several cases, ads were
rejected by the media due to technical inaccuracies
and had to be re-cast. In addition, all interviewees
agreed that at the district level they lack the capacities or resources to develop and manage these
broadcast opportunities. As a result, the majority
PAGE AND POMARES
of the electoral alliances decided to manage their
spots from the level of their national organization:
to produce generic content utilizing the presidential
advertisement to which was later added a plaque
with the names of their legislative candidates. The
interviews also show that the primaries became a
key learning stage, with the parties improving
their skills for the general election.
The national electoral office or DINE developed
its own software, free and verifiable for parties and
with the means to manage advertising space allocated by the law, which permitted DINE to track
those efforts itself. The media and the parties
received a software user manual two weeks before
the campaign, but were given no in-person training.
The party leaders said they only realized the amount
of time and work involved in the management of the
free broadcast time when they began the task. The
technicians in charge of the management of the
media, meanwhile, said that in most cases they
had to deal with representatives of the parties without technical knowledge. This indicates the importance of strengthening the ability of the parties to
take full advantage of the resources that the new
system provides.
5. CONCLUSIONS AND
RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on our media monitoring project, it
appears that, in its first implementation, the criteria
of the new regime of broadcast advertisement were
followed. The distribution of broadcast time followed the criteria set by law. The political parties
did not conduct systematic attempts to evade the
prohibitions, although there were some cases of prolonged coverage of speeches (presumably paid).
The new regime resulted in more equal access for
candidates and parties to radio and television. It was
effective in mitigating the impact of economic
resources from private sources in mass media campaigns. However, the other major source of inequality relating to campaign resources is still at work:
the use of public resources and especially of government advertisement for electoral purposes by the
ruling parties at all levels—national, provincial,
and municipal—during and outside the campaign
period. As far as electoral regulation goes, the provisions on the broadcast of government advertisements during the campaign are still very loose
MASS MEDIA AND THE 2011 ARGENTINE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
and, although during the two weeks prior to 2011
election government advertising had a low incidence compared with 26571 advertising, there are
no legal limits to prevent greater discretionary use
in the future. Furthermore, penalties for incumbents
who violate the prohibitions were non-existent since
there were no complaints from political parties on
this matter.
The enforcement of the new regime is essentially
based on the level of supervision that the political
parties can maintain. This method of enforcement
does not seem to be practicable because it requires
a significant amount of resources and capabilities
that, in general, the parties do not have. In addition,
the incentives are not appealing enough for the parties to assume the role of denouncing their peers.
Based on the results of the media monitoring, we
conclude by providing some recommendations
aimed at strengthening the new regime of staterun mass media campaigning and, more broadly,
the regulation of campaign finance in Argentina.
First, in order to prevent incumbency advantages
from deepening because of the discretionary use of
resources,13 we recommend that more stringent limits on the use of public resources for campaign purposes at all levels of government be established. In
this vein, an initial measure that must be addressed
from the electoral legislation is the ban on government advertising during the campaign periods leading up to the primaries and general elections. The
prohibition should reach the provincial and municipal districts that hold their elections simultaneously
with national ones. Also, the ban should cover the
use of a broadcast to the nation (cadena nacional)
throughout the electoral campaign, unless the Electoral Court of Appeals rules—at the request of government—that it is an urgent issue of public interest.
The discretionary use of government advertising
can be more than a source of inequality in electoral
campaigns. It can also be used as a reward or punishment of the media depending on their relationship with government authorities. Civil society
organizations such as the Asociación por los Derechos Civiles (a civil rights association) and Poder
Ciudadano have reported on the discretionary
use of government advertisements.14 In 2012 the
national government increased its advertising
expenditure by 87% compared to 2011. But these
funds were not equally distributed among media
groups. Those favorable to the national government
received notably more than those who are usually
543
more critical to Cristina Fernández de Kirchner’s
administration. Government-friendly media groups
received up to 850% more than last year, while
the rest of the groups received up to 92% less for
print media advertising. In 2007, a media group
opposed to the national government (Editorial Perfil) filed a claim on the grounds of discrimination that reached the Supreme Court. In 2011 the
Supreme Court ordered the national government
to follow equal criteria in their allocation of advertisement among the different media groups. The
national government failed to comply with this
rule and has received several warnings from the
judicial authorities since then. The discretionary
use of government advertisements is found in
some provincial governments as well.15
A second issue has to do with the authority
responsible for the implementation of political
finance law. So far, the DINE has performed its
duties in accordance with law and enjoys legitimacy
among parties. However, the national government
can singularly affect its performance by appointing
the national electoral director and setting its internal
regulations and budget. Considering the new media
campaign system resulted in the Interior Ministry
exerting very important powers over party finances,
a debate about the possibility of DINE gaining more
autonomy from the executive government is in
order.
A third issue has to do with the control of election
campaign finance in general. Argentine legislation
should move to stricter limits on the use of public
resources for campaign purposes. Among them, as
mentioned, the country could replicate limits
already in place in Brazil and Mexico such as the
prohibition of advertising promoting government
actions, programs, and public works throughout
the campaign period. The measure cannot by itself
reverse the fact that partisan activity (between
13
Stephen Ansolabehere, John Mark Hansen, Shigeo Hirano,
and John Snyder Jr., ‘‘The Incumbency Advantage in U.S. Elections,’’ 1 Election Law Journal 315 (2002).
14
A thorough analysis of the use of government advertising as
indirect censorship in the Latin American region can be
found in Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, ‘‘The Price of
Silence’’: The Growing Threat of Soft Censorship in Latin
America (Open Society Institute and Asociación por los Derechos Civiles, 2008) pp. 31–66 and 87–102, available at < http://
www.soros.org/sites/default/files/silence_20080811.pdf > .
15
For example, the Supreme Court ruled along similar lines in a
case involving a provincial government (the province of Neuquén: Becerra, op. cit.).
544
elections) in Argentina is financed mainly through
informal use of state resources, but it may help to
limit practices that are a more blatant use of public
resources for campaign purposes.
Also, there is a need to debate the establishment
of a regime of penalties for candidates, their assets,
and their political careers (for example, the annulment of candidate nominations in the case of serious
violations). Although beyond the scope of this article, stronger powers, resources, and more expeditious procedures are in order to move towards
more effective and efficient control mechanisms.
It is also necessary to ensure that political parties
and the media comply with the prohibition on buying and selling electoral advertisements. For this to
occur, it is necessary to provide the electoral authority or the Audit Commission with the capacity to
monitor the media, report mistakes, and solve any
violation of the regime. Today, media monitoring
services are provided almost solely by one company
that does not measure all media and districts and that
delivers its reports to the National Electoral Court of
Appeals after the close of the campaign. Besides the
aforementioned weak regime of sanctions—based
mainly on fines—there have been very few cases
resulting in tough sanctions. For example, in 2006,
the federal judge of the City of Buenos Aires
absolved several parties that exceeded the spending
limits during the 2003 presidential campaign on
the grounds that such expenditures had been made
by others and that the candidates had ignored the
situation.16
Our findings from in-depth interviews also point
to the need for promoting and facilitating the
capacities of political parties. The first implementation of the state-run regime of electoral advertising
highlighted the lack of professionalization amongst
most national parties. While the causes and consequences of this deficit exceed this study, several
PAGE AND POMARES
measures can be put in place to ensure that parties
comply with the training activities in accordance
with the provisions of Law 26215 and ensure that
the electoral administration bodies develop the
training necessary to improve compliance with the
current legislation.
A final word is in order with regard to the challenges of implementing a national law in a highly
decentralized system of election administration. At
the provincial level the funding of electoral campaigns is not regulated in most districts. This complicates the question of control and threatens the
effectiveness of the new national legislation, especially when sub-national elections are held at a
date close to, or simultaneously with, the national
election. Given the restrictions on private contributions and expenditures set at the national level, it is
likely that resources were channelled through the
provincial campaigns where no spending limits
are set or enforced. The government decree enacting
the new law recognizes this issue by allowing provinces to adhere to the law on simultaneous elections
and also join the new regime of broadcast advertising, but coordination between provincial and
national level is still a challenge for Argentine elections.
Address correspondence to:
Julia Pomares
Centro de Implementación de Polı´ticas Públicas
para la Equidad y el Crecimiento
Center for the Implementation of Public Policies
Promoting Equity and Growth (CIPPEC)
Av. Callao 25
1 C1022AAA Buenos Aires
Argentina
E-mail: [email protected]
16
To date, the same judge has not completed judicial control
over the finances of the 2007 presidential campaign of the
incumbent FPV party. The court ruled that the case is suspended
pending resolution of the criminal case being investigated about
illegal contributions made by some drugstores to the campaign
that involved four deaths.