The National Electoral Council is studying a reform to sanction the anticipated campaign

Ecuadornews:

The president of the electoral body said that a meeting with the Comptroller’s Office is pending to know the status of the audit requested on the administrative, operational and financial management of the previous 7 years.

With the convocation of sectional elections in 2019, the candidate registration period began, which also triggered other processes to verify topics such as the anticipated campaign. However, this action is not classified as a prohibition in the Code of Democracy, so there is no sanction.

“We need to reform the law so that there is more control,” said the president of the organization, Diana Atamaint.

At thisstage what is the work that the National Electoral Council will do?

We have proceeded to call elections and until December 21, political organizations will be able to register their candidates in all provinces, but it should be remembered that they must comply with fundamental requirements. We will be very strict when verifying, for example, that they have complied with the internalor primary election processes according to their regulations, so we call for them to do so on time.

All candidates must come out of that process?

As indicated in the Code of Democracy, there are open primaries where militant sand adherents choose candidates; the closed, where only militants intervene;and another, with delegations. Any of these procedures needs the endorsement of the National Electoral Council that will follow up. The candidates must have legitimacy.

Howwill you control the anticipated campaign?

The National Electoral Council is registering that advance advertising in billboards, banners, flags, even in walls with the colors of political parties.We are receiving permanent reports about the whole country and we have registered8,965 evidences of this type: 58 billboards and 4 radio audios.

What will you do with these evidences?

We have limitation in the law. The maximum sanction is that it will be imputed to the electoral expense, for that reason we are studying how to change the regulation so that there is a greater sanction; we need to deepen control so that there is respect, but apart from this it should not be like that.

Forethical principles, if the advance campaign is prohibited, candidates should not do it. So there is no penalty?

While these actions are not identified as an infraction or offense in the respectivenorm, it cannot be sanctioned; the only thing we can do is include it in electoral spending. We have to see the way to elaborate a regulation that allows to sanction and to control better and these are reforms that we will discuss the counselors.

Are internal disputes already over?

There will always be differences, we will dissent; however, resolutions at the end ofthe day will always be based on the national interest and the strengthening of democracy. These differences are part of democracy, but we will focus on the result of the votes.

What happened to the oversight of the previous Electoral Council?

We hope that in the next few days the Office of the Comptroller will give us a preview of the investigations. We ask for administrative and financial audit of the last 7 years. We also initiated another audit of the computer system used toverify the signatures of political movements, whose results we will soon announce. That is of interest to us.

Will all these processes need more personnel?

We will need more people to do all the processes, for example the young people who helped in the process of change of address worked 2 months. The National Electoral Council has around 1,077 employees in the ordinary period, at the national level, but more are needed to help us in the verification of there quirements of the candidates, among other procedures. In the history of personnel that works without dependency in electoral time has been counted up to 40,000 employees. (I)

Source: https://www.eltelegrafo.com.ec/noticias/politica/3/cne-reforma-sancion-campana-anticipada