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About the Political Advert Repository

The Political Advert Repository (PAdRe or Padre) is an IEC initiative, supported by Media Monitoring Africa (MMA). This initiative is in line with the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights' Guidelines On Access To Information And Elections In Africa

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About the Political Advert Repository

The pertinent General Principles of the Guidelines On Access To Information And Elections In Africa include:

  1. The Right of Access to Information - that every person has the right of access to information of public bodies and relevant private bodies, and that policies practices creating a right of access to information shall be interpreted on the basis of a duty to disclose
  2. Proactive Disclosure - the presumption that all information held by relevant electoral stakeholders is subject to full disclosure
  3. Duty to Create, Keep, Organise and Maintain Information - all relevant electoral stakeholders are obliged to create, keep, organise, maintain and manage information about the electoral process in machine-readable formats and in a manner that facilitates the right of access to information
  4. Procedure for Accessing Information - the process shall be simple, quick and affordable
  5. Proactive Disclosure of Political Advertisements - which includes a plan for transparent repository of all political advertisements, including those targeted at individuals or specific groups on online media

Padre supports these principles by providing a platform for registered Political Parties to upload all official digital political adverts, and for citizens to be able to search through and view those adverts. Citizens are also able to upload images of possible adverts that they have seen online to check whether these are official adverts or not.

About the IEC
About the IEC

The Electoral Commission of South Africa (the IEC) an independent organisation established under chapter nine of the Constitution. It conducts elections to the National Assembly, provincial legislatures and municipal councils. It has a mandate to ensure free and fair elections. As part of that mandate, the IEC promotes access to information in the elections, and the Padre is an initiative that supports access to information by providing a repository for official political party adverts that can be accessed by the public.

About MMA

The MMA is supporting this initiative in line with its mandate and organisational objectives, which includes ensuring free and fair elections, promoting media freedom and overall contributing to a functional democracy. MMA is also contributing because of and through its expertise and work on mis- and disinformation, and expertise and experience in developing and building digital literacy campaigns such as Real411, Rover, Open and Disclose and KnowNews

About MMA