ABSTRACT70 percent of Latvian citizens are of the opinion that it is necessary to pass laws that would regulate political parties’ pre-election campaign financing; only 15 percent of Latvian citizens think that political advertisements as a whole generate accurate impressions of the political parties being advertised.
These results were gathered during the study “Transparency for the 8th Saiema Pre-election Campaign Funding,” conducted by the SKDS Centre, a think-tank specializing in market and social research.
The citizens that defended the strongest regulations on campaign financing would vote in February for “Jaunais Laiks” (New Era) (81.7%); those in support of minimal regulations would vote for “Tautas Partija” (The People’s Party) (69.8%). The second largest group in support of strong regulations would vote for “Zala Partija un Zemnieku Savieniba” (The Green Party and Union of Framers); the third largest group would vote for “TB/LNNK” (For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK).
In answer to a question about how to regulate pre-election campaign financing, 34.5% of those polled are of the opinion that it is necessary to set a monetary limit on a political party’s campaign financing; 23% of those polled support time and size limitations for political advertisements (minutes for TV and radio commercials and square centimetres for published advertisements); 19% of those polled are of the opinion that political advertisements should be banned in general.
After examining the content of political advertisements, only 14.6% of citizens concluded that political advertisements generate accurate impressions of the political party being advertised; in turn, 71.3% of citizens concluded that the impressions generated by political advertisements are incorrect.
Positions Regarding the Election Campaigns of Political Parties and their Financing