More than 150 Moldovans from the country and abroad used the hotline set up by the Center for the Analysis and Prevention of Corruption (CAPC) during the election campaign and on Election Day. Most of the questions and complaints referred to dead persons or persons who were abroad, but were included in the voter rolls, and to documents with which one can vote. The hotline to provide legal aid was launched within an initiative for transparent presidential elections of the CAPC, the Journalistic Investigations Center and the newspaper “Ziarul de Garda”.
In a news conference at IPN, CAPC head Galina Bostan said the number of those who called to the hotline during the presidential elections is lower than of those who called during the parliamentary elections of 2014. This is due to the fact that this year the Central Election Commission (CEC) launched a similar hotline and because the financing for promoting the CAPC hotline was two-three times lower.
“All the violations reported through the hotline were relayed for tabulation to the observers of Promo-LEX so that they are investigated further by the Journalistic Investigations Center or “Ziarul de Garda”,” stated Galina Bostan.
Journalistic Investigations Center head Cornelia Cozonac said the people in the presidential elections showed less activism than in the previous elections. The hampering of access to information of public interest was one of the most serious problems identified in the pre-election period and on Election Day. The CEC banned the publication of the workplace of persons who make donations to political parties and thus the journalists could not conduct investigations and identify ties between donors and candidates for President.
Furthermore, the Journalistic Investigations Center aimed to examine the subscription lists presented by the candidates for President to the CEC, but didn’t have access to these. “I think it is a serious violation of journalists’ rights, an attack on the freedom of the media and democracy because the information of public interest in a democratic state is open to the public. In an election campaign, this information is very important to voters, who must take a correct decision as to which of the candidates to vote for,” stated Cornelia Cozonac.
A guidebook for the mass media about journalists’ rights in election campaigns was worked out within the initiative.
