“vote Dani SireraVote People’s Party”. In a video of just over a minute, the mayor of Madrid, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeidaexplicitly calls for the vote for the popular candidate for mayor of Barcelona. This advertisement hired by him PP circulated by Facebook and instagram during the reflection journey and is still active this Sunday, the day of the municipal elections and regional 28Mdespite the fact that the law prohibits the dissemination of electoral propaganda on both days. The PP has also paid a second ad in which it is the conservative mayor himself who asks the citizens to vote.
The Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG) —from 1985— is the one that regulates everything about the electoral processes in Spain. Article 53 establishes that “electoral propaganda cannot be disseminated or any act of election campaign once it has legally ended & rdquor ;. This restriction affects both the day of reflection and the day of the elections.
Contacted by this newspaper, sources from the PP in Barcelona claim to be “surprised” because “the company had instructions to deactivate advertising on Friday” and have reported that they will withdraw those ads.
His case is the most powerful, but not the only one. From the trace of the data of the meta ad library, EL PERIÓDICO has detected dozens of parties that break the law by asking for the vote with ads published on social networks and active during the day of reflection, established so that voters could reflect and assess their vote without being objects of any type of influence. policy. A month ago, this newspaper also detected the parties that had hired digital propaganda before the campaign, something also prohibited.
At the state level, there are examples ranging from large traditional formations such as the PP or the PSOE to smaller ones. The same thing happens in Catalonia. Among the cases detected by EL PERIÓDICO are: an ad of Citizens in Sant Cugat, active and in circulation since last May 15 and two announcements from Vila-seca in Comú, deactivated this same Sunday. Contacted by this newspaper, the Sant Cugatense branch of Cs has deactivated the ad and explained that “it should have been deactivated& rdquor; on Friday. There are also municipal parties that engage in this practice. It is the case of Canviem Mollet, Independent Units San Fost and Ara Molins.
Legislation “a bit confusing & rdquor;
The LOREG does not specify what it considers to be propaganda, which makes it the Central Electoral Board responsible for deciding on each case. However, this body does not have the means to investigate the digital activity of the parties and can only act if it has previously received a complaint from an affected party.
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“Our regulations are still anchored to an analogical perception of electoral communication and it is a bit confusing,” he told this newspaper. leyre burguera, Professor of Constitutional Law at the National University of Distance Studies (UNED). The different interpretation that the parties can make of the legal text, he assures, gives rise to “many conflicts & rdquor ;.
In 2011, the LOREG was modified and expanded to clarify certain aspects. Although the law allows “participation in social networks & rdquor; of the parties, he remarks that it is only “as long as it does not involve any type of commercial contract for its realization& rdquor;. Ads posted by many parties on Facebook and Instagram have been hired.