“UA: Public broadcasting” made public procedure of debate

“UA: public broadcasting” made public the procedure of debate of the candidates for the presidency before the second round of election, as Ukrinform reported. 1. Debate are held, as the Central election commission ordered to hold the second round of election; 2. Candidates for the presidency are to be present in person at debate (no person empowered to act for the candidate could be allowed); 3. Debate have to be funded by the state budget (one hour of debate costs around 6 millions of hryvnias (equivalent to around $ 224 thousands); 4. Day of debate has to be April 19th 2019 (last Friday before the day of election); 5. Duration: 60 minutes; 6. Live broadcasting: in studio of “UA: Pershyy” and “UA: Ukrainian radio” (other TV channels could transmit it on free of charge basis); 7. Casting of lots (10 minutes before broadcasting time) is to define who among the candidates will speak the first; 8. Debatre format: introductory speech is to last 5 minutes, discussion is to last 36 minutes of uninterrupted broadcasting time, closing speech is to last no longer than 5 minutes, reply brief is to last no longer than 30 seconds in case of availability of broadcasting time; 9. Discussion format: question of the candidate is to last no longer than 1 minute, reply of the candidate is to last no longer than 3 minutes, every candidate can ask 4-5 questions; 10. In case if only one candidate is present in studio, he has all the broadcasting time to exercise his election campaigning. The experts of the CEDEM center of democracy and rule of law, spoke of rules of holding television debate. The integral text of resolution of the central election commission is available here. To remind, the artist Volodymyr Zelensky (30,24% of votes) and incumbent president Petro Poroshenko (15,95% of votes) are to take part in the second round of election on April 21st.