The local and regional radio and TV stations passed the first exam of electoral debates that were held in single-member constituencies. At the same time, this cannot be said about all the candidates, executive director of the Electronic Press Association Ion Bunduchi concluded on the completion of a project to determine the way in which local and regional media informed the citizens, IPN reports.
During the campaign prior to the parliamentary elections, 14 TV channels and three radio stations staged electoral debates, covering 20 national constituencies, except for Chisinau. Each TV channel and radio station held by at least four electoral debates so that 80 debates were staged overall.
According to Ion Bunduchi, the debates were held very well. “For example, the Balti channel BTV held debates on two constituencies that cover Balti, but also staged debates on the national constituency, even if the law didn’t oblige them to. The law says the local and regional broadcasters are obliged to hold debates on single-member constituencies,” he stated.
The media expert said particular TV channels used elements that are not used even by central televisions. For example, Sor TV (Soroca) adopted a format by which each candidate invited to the debate could bring by five sympathizers or supporters. There, the debate producers also invited a representative of the Soroca Youth Council and a representative designated by the Soroca Veterans Council. Each of them could put questions, not yet the candidates.
TV Prim (Glodeni), after holding all the planned debates, produced a program to assess the way in which the elections were covered. This involved representatives of local civil society who said such programs should also be held before the election campaign so as to help the voters form an opinion and formulate expectations.
The managers and organizers of the debates admitted that some of the candidates refused to take part in the debates even if the participation seemed beneficial to them. “Some came to the first round, not yet to second one. The involved TV and radio stations for the first time worked out the profiles of candidates, considering the voters should know details about the candidates. As the given information was public, being placed on the CEC’s websites, the moderators asked the participants what they thought about this or why they didn’t indicate particular data. For this reason, a part of the candidates didn’t take part in the second round,” stated Ion Bunduchi.
In two or three cases, no invitee came to the debate even if these were invited in accordance with the electoral and audiovisual legislation. On the other hand, 42 of the 47 candidates presented themselves at the debates held by the TV channel of Bălți and this is a good result.
The local and regional TV and radio stations broadcast short, five-minute electoral information programs on the issues: “What elections under the mixed electoral system mean” and “How to vote and who to vote”.
For the first time, the media outlets involved in the project used social networking sites to make the debates more visible and to inform the voters, mainly the young ones. “If this hadn’t been done, that minimum turnout of young voters at the parliamentary elections wouldn’t have been probably witnessed,” said the media expert.
The activity was carried out as part of the project “Contributions to informing citizens in rural single-member constituencies about the mixed electoral system through local and regional broadcasting media”.
