Transcarpathia, election 2015: black PR in action

The OPORA records in Transcarpathia "black PR" against "Solidarnist", "Nash Krai", "Vidrodzhennya" and the "United Center"

On the night of 1 to 2 of October, unknown persons distributed in some districts of Transcarpathia leaflets with signs of "black PR" with logos of parties "Bloc of Petro Poroshenko "Solidarnist", "Nash Krai" and "Vidrodzhennya." And on October 3, leaflets with a negative message against candidates of the United Center – Victor and Andriy Balohas – were detected.

The OPORA observers detected the products commonly known as "black PR" against the parties "Bloc of Petro Poroshenko "Solidarnist", "Nash Krai" and "Vidrodzhennya" in Mukachevo, Vynogradiv, Perechyn, Velyky Berezny. Leaflets were left in doorways of houses or mailboxes.

One type of leaflets bear logos of the three parties with the words – "Government and criminals together." The other type bears the inscription "Government and criminals go together" and pictures of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and the former head of the Leonid Kuchma’s Presidential Administration Viktor Medvedchuk.

Under their photographs, there are images of the head of the Transcarpathian Regional State Administration Hennadiy Moskal and people’s deputy of Ukraine Valeriy Patskan, as well as people’s deputy of Ukraine Mykhailo Lanyo and candidate for the mayor of Mukachevo from the "Vidrodzhennya" party Ivan Chubyrko.  The broducts do not contain background data.

On October 03, leaflets with signs of "black PR" against a candidate for the mayor and city council deputy Andriy Baloha and a candidate to the Transcarpathian Regional Council Victor Baloha were detected on the streets of Mukachevo

The leaflets have a negative message. This product also do not contain background data.

Since the content of all these leaflets contain negative message, their distribution has signs of "black PR" which is a violation of the Law of Ukraine "On Local Elections", in particular – Part 5 of Article 60, which states: "It is prohibited to disseminate deliberately false information about the candidate, political party or its local organization being a subject of the election process."

Also, all printed materials relating to campaigning for or against a particular candidate or party should include information on the printing. In this case, the background data are missing, which is a violation of paragraph 2 of Article 56 of the Law. 

Source – OPORA.