site.bta Marketing and Opinion Researchers: "Banning Poll Publication during Election Campaign Opens Door to Manipulation"

Marketing and Opinion Researchers:"Banning Poll Publication during Election Campaign Opens Door to Manipulation"

Sofia, April 20 (BTA) - "Banning the publication of the results of election-related surveys during an election campaign violates the right to mutual information, the freedom of speech and expression," the Bulgarian Association of Marketing and Opinion Researchers (BAMOR) writes in a declaration sent to National Assembly Chair Tsetska Tsacheva and National Assembly Legal Affairs Committee Chairman Danail Kirilov and copied to Prime Minister Boyko Borissov, President Rosen Plevneliev, National Ombudsman Maya Manolova and the media.

The declaration is prompted by draft amendments to the Election Code, approved by the Legal Affairs Committee, which ban the publishing of election-related sociological surveys while an election campaign is in progress.

"Such practice exists only in totalitarian states and was familiar to Bulgarian citizens in the period before 1989," BAMOR declares. It argues that this "opens a broad scope for manipulation, through the possibility to circulate in public the results of election-related surveys conducted by unidentified entities for which nobody takes responsibility."

"In the age of the social networks, where everything can be circulated, such ban is pointless and places at a disadvantage all media that operate professionally and responsibly," the organization insists.

"The ban is discriminatory because it does not restrict parties' right to commission surveys for the elections but restricts citizens' right to be informed."

The BAMOR members insist on respect for the principles of the democratic State and categorically oppose the planned revision of the Election Code. They intend to approach the competent state bodies and European institutions about these motions, the declaration says.