Presidential election teams challenge TVP's right to preview campaign spots

spots Five election teams have officially protested against the procedure of, "qualifying election programs for television broadcast," by the authorities of the Polish public television (TVP). The heads of the station Slawomir Zielinski and Andrzej Kwiatkowski, who have former ties with President Aleksander Kwasniewski, now have the right to look into the election programs to be transmitted 24 hours before they are aired. The representatives of candidates Dariusz Grabowski, Marian Krzaklewski, Jan Lopuszanski, Jan Olszewski and Lech Walesa say now the people working for Kwasniewski will decide which election programs will go on air. Zielinski, the head of Channel 1 TVP said he would not have anything to do with those programs while Kwiatkowski, the head of TVP said, "It would make no sense if the head of the whole company spent 13 days to watch two-minute long campaign programs." (Rzeczpospolita Sept. 16-17, page 1,2)