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Photo 2The national television directed by Monika Garbačiauskaitė-Budrienė violated the principles of equality. Photo by Stasys Žumbis
Naglis Puteikis, president of the Center-Nationalist Party (CPT), filed a complaint with the court about the debate organized by the LRT. Initially he appealed to the Central Electoral Commission for such a procedure, but after examining the complaint, he found that the grouping of parties by rating in the debate complied with the law. However, the court considers otherwise.
“Public television financed with the money of all Lithuanians – LRT – has unilaterally decided that the main systemic parties should discuss with each other separately, and the smaller non-systemic political forces should discuss separately. I am convinced that in this decision , LRT television violated the fundamental principle of democratic debate: participants cannot be discriminated against based on their beliefs, number of party members, size of grants or qualifications, and the model chosen by LRT violates this basic principle of equality “said CPT President N. Puteikis.
The material collected by the court shows that the LRT, before organizing the debate, approached the CEC and asked its opinion on the grouping of candidates. “The CEC has decided that the invitation to candidates to television programs organized by LRT according to the results of the survey conducted by Norstat, divided into” ratings “, the Law on Elections to the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, intact and enshrined in the principle of equality, and the selection criteria are objective. The panel of judges, having evaluated all the circumstances of the case and the legal norms relevant to the dispute, does not agree with this conclusion of the CEC “, it states the court’s ruling.
Therefore, the CEC’s decision was annulled and the commission was forced to re-examine N. Puteikis’s complaint. The court noted that the LRT did not verify either in the procedural documents or during the court hearing that the criteria chosen for inviting candidates to television programs (inviting four candidates from the lists that occupy the first places according to the results of the sociological survey) did not violate the equal rights of all candidates. introduce yourself to voters and opportunities to engage in discussions with each other, regardless of the results of a preliminary survey of potential voters conducted by the company in question.
Small party representatives rightly point out that the LRT had devised a system so that uncomfortable parties would not have the opportunity to ask uncomfortable questions of elite parties. “It’s as if the LRT already knows which parties are the most attractive to voters and wants the unattractive ones not to damage the image. This is to prevent voters from seeing that systemic parties are in fact completely the same, “potential candidates said.
Following the court decision, the LRT announced that it was changing the procedure for organizing debates for the Seimas elections. Participants will now be invited randomly (by lottery). 4-5 participants from the political campaign will be invited to participate in the debate show. A total of 8 debates will be held for representatives of all participants in the political campaign, lists of political parties, to take part in the debate twice.
The spells, with the participation of the auditor of the auditing company Grant Thornton Baltic, will be broadcast live on the LRT television program “Labas rytas, Lietuva” on Tuesday, September 15 at 8.35.
The next debates in the debate will be broadcast on LRT this Wednesday and Thursday.
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