Independent Media

Media monitoring /2005 Presidential election/

FINAL MONITORING REPORT 2005 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

FOUR: MEDIA AND ELECTIONS

•  LEGAL FRAMEWORK

Freedom of expression and right to publish .

The 1992 Constitution of Mongolia guarantees the following rights and freedoms of citizens:

Article 16.16

Freedom of speech, freedom to express opinions and freedom to publish.

Article 16.17

Right to seek and receive information that is not confidential or legally protected by the state and its institutions.

Article 10

Under this article, international treaties to which Mongolia has become party become effective as domestic legislation upon the entry into force of the laws for their ratification. Mongolia has ratified the International Human Rights Declaration (1961) and the International Convenant on Political and Civil Rights, so articles 19 of these documents should be recognized as domestic law.

Media freedom

The Mongolian parliament in 1998 passed the Law on Media Freedom, which forbids censorship and prohibits state ownership of the mass media. The parliamentary resolution for implementation of this law called for the conversion of all state-owned broadcasting to a public service, but the process was delayed for 7 years until January 2005, when parliament passed the Law on Public Radio and TV. Unfortunately, this only came into effect on July 1, 2005, so that Mongolian National Radio and TV (MRTV) remained a state broadcaster for the presidential election.

The Law on Presidential Elections and the media

Defamatory legislation

According to article 27.4 of the Law on Presidential Elections, it is prohibited to disclose private information and letters. The same article prohibits defamation of a candidate's honour.

Strict defamatory provisions are included in the Criminal and Civil Code. Journalists can be imprisoned for up to 2 years if information which is false or adversely affects a person's honor, dignity and reputation, is distributed through the mass media.

Other

Mongolia still lacks legislation on access to information and on protection of whistle-blowers. A journalist's right to protect his/her information sources is not legally guaranteed.

•  EXPERIENCE OF MONGOLIAN MEDIA COVERAGE OF ELECTIONS

The results of the monitoring conducted by the Mongolian Free and Democratic Journalists' Association (MFDJA), the Mongolian Press Institute and GI during previous elections showed that the Mongolia media have predominantly served the ruling party. Media monitoring has been conducted for parliamentary elections, but this was the first monitoring of coverage of a presidential election.

The first media monitoring was run by an international group of 5 journalists from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and a MFDJA Covering Elections project under the EU TACIS democracy program in 1996. The team reported disappointment that the Mongolian media had concentrated in the election campaign on making money and had paid insufficient regard to their responsibility to provide a forum for informed discussion, and thus assist better informed voting decisions.

The Mongolian Press Institute conducted ten days of media monitoring (June 20-30) in the 2000 parliamentary elections, involving 4 daily newspapers, one radio station and 4 TV channels. It is noted in their report that media information was biased, and they found many examples of partisan reporting or forcing of information in favor of a candidate. Extremely one-sided information dominated on the TV channels, particularly the state-owned channel, which exclusively served the ruling Democratic Coalition; Channel 25 and the Onoodor daily newspaper were neutral, they said.

Globe International, in cooperation with the Voter Education Center, ran media monitoring in 2004 for the parliamentary elections, looking at campaign financing, and covered the whole campaign period. The Mongolian Press Institute also conducted a week of media monitoring, June 11-17, 2004.

During the 2004 parliamentary elections, GI in cooperation with the Confederation of Mongolian Journalists (CMJ) implemented the Free and Fair project, and the CMJ and the Mongolian Newspaper Association for the first time adopted a Code of Conduct on Election Coverage and called on the media tp provide balanced and objective reporting. However, the ruling party used the media for its own political benefit and the private media used the election campaign as a way to generating income.

GI media monitoring showed that a total of 1 billion 764.4 million MNT was paid to the state-owned broadcaster, 96% by the ruling MPRP, 28% by the Mother Land-Democracy Coalition, the rest by other parties.

The Mongolian Press Institute reported that 65.4% of election coverage was on the MPRP, 28% on the MLD Coalition, the rest on the other parties. They found that 19% of MRTV election coverage was in fact disguised electoral advertising, with 21% on TV5, 10% on TV9, 9% on Channel 25 and 3% on UBS.