Early political ads, campaigns banned

JAKARTA. The House of Representatives and a task force on election campaign monitoring have agreed to a moratorium on political advertisements and campaigns from broadcasting companies until the official start of campaigning on March 16.

The decision was made after a meeting between House Commission I overseeing defense, foreign affairs and information and the task force on Tuesday evening.

"Commission I urged the task force to ban all political advertisements as well as campaigns by participants in the elections until the official campaign period begins on March 16, running until April 5," Commission I deputy chairman Ramadhan Pohan said.

The task force consists of representatives from the General Elections Commission (KPU), the Election Supervisory Committee (Bawaslu), the Indonesian Broadcasting Commission (KPI) and the Independent Election Commission (KIP).

Bawaslu chairman Daniel Zuchron said the task force would soon meet to discuss the definition of a "political campaign", arguing that different interpretations had hampered legal action against TV broadcasters that promoted certain political parties or figures.

"It's urgent to have single, exact definition of the term ‘political campaign’ so we can avoid this kind of debate," he said. (Margareth S.Aritonang)