Brainwashed election campaign. Info-Prim Neo analysis

The lack of inverted commas in the title is not an omission. The 2009 election campaign is brainwashed directly and in truth. More precisely, the Moldovan society entered the election campaign for this year’s legislative elections that was nicely and carefully brainwashed beforehand, especially as regards broadcasting. It is more brainwashed that in the 2005 campaign and much more brainwashed than the 2001 campaign. The electoral theory and practices from the last decades and even centuries show that the elections are rigged not only on the election day, but much earlier, including on the mass media segment. Moldovan experts anticipate that unlike other years, there would not be many problems as regards the observance of the regulations concerning the covering of the election campaign by mass media adopted by the Central Election Commission, including on the part of the mass media affiliated to the power and certain political parties. At the meeting of the Press Club two weeks ago, analyst Igor Botan said that the interested political forces “successfully” finalized the media brainwashing process that lasted for several years so that not much depends on the election campaign itself. Last weekend, the Electronic Press Association (APEL) presented an all-inclusive report on the presence of political/election players at the main television channels during the pre-electoral period, which confirms the abovementioned statements. The statistics published on the website www.apel.md show that a large part of the television channels in Moldova live in parallel worlds that are mainly virtual and impose the same idea on the society. Only certain politicians and political parties exist in these worlds of theirs and all of them are “nice, fluffy and rosy”. There are no other politicians and parties. Even if such appear on the given TV channels, they are presented in a very unfavorable light. It is true that there are 2-3 TV channels that try to observe certain elementary rules for presenting the political actors in the news and other kinds of programs, and to perform their main task of informing the people so that the society or the voters better understand what the political parties or persons represent and who they should vote for this time. They show that something like this is possible and necessary in Moldova. But these channels’ potential to reach out to the people, including technically, to the extent to which the coverage allows them, is insignificant compared with the media force of the holding that serves the interests of the ruling party and their affiliates. The brainwashing process started immediately after the 2005 legislative elections, as it should when something is taken seriously. These elections were won by the present government to the limit and they would not have won them without the ‘solution’ of April 4, 2005. During 4 years, the PCRM would not have kept the power without the strategic partnership with the PPCD. This means that the governance act was also to the limit. Before 2005, the PCRM had a more comfortable government. Aware of the fact that they lose their electorate, which is something inevitable for any ruling party, but amplified by other factors as well, the PCRM and PPCD found another solution involving a long fight and a goal for 2009. They have been pursuing their aim consistently until now. The solution was the control over the broadcasting sector, which could insure control over the society’s ‘brain’. As Lapusneanu said: “If you do not want me, I want you.” At the second stage of this strategy, the public message of the municipal stations Antena C and Euro TV was destroyed when they were privatized. The media holding of the capital city was at that time one of the fewest serious hindrances to the full control of the informational space by a single political force. But before the second stage, there was the first stage. The PCRM and PPCD learned the lesson from until 2005, when they did not manage to destroy the holding of the Chisinau City Hall by administrative methods. They adopted a law – the present Broadcasting Code – which bans the local public authorities from financing public radio stations and television channels. It is said that the same Code separated the 9 posts of member of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) according to political criteria. The civil society repeatedly reacted to what it considered irregularities and abuse on the part of the BCC as regards the withdrawal of licenses for radio and TV frequencies and the granting of these licenses to applicants that appeared overnight or that are known even at night owing to their political color. The caravan goes on yet, full of frequencies and channels, radio and TV networks even if the dogs bark. It seems that some of the BCC members were arrested and then released without much transparency so that the caravan moved smoothly and unhindered. So, there was created a media force ready for brainwashing. The economic and financial part of this strategy is shrouded in mystery and the present Broadcasting Code and the BCC are not able or do not want to make effort to reveal the truth. The annihilation at the end of last year of Pro TV Chisinau channel, which is now described as impartial and professional even in the APEL report, was meant to symbolize the ‘successful’ finalization of the process of gathering the Moldovan society into an informational space dominated by pro-government media resources. The danger still exists as the Pro TV issue was not solved, but only ‘stopped’. If the present government or governmental coalition wins the future elections, it will mean first of all that it won ‘the media war’ started long ago. In this war, it has always had an active role and used all the permitted and not permitted ‘war methods and maneuvers’. Anyway, it is the Opposition that lost the ‘media war’. The Opposition political parties realized that they were forced to play the role of great anonymous players or “bad guys” in the political fight with the government on the media segment only at the end of 2008, after the case with Pro TV. However, it seems that Pro TV was saved not through the open support effort of the Opposition, but through the more discreet channels of the Americans and Europeans. The Opposition lacked perspicacity in this ‘war, but had other virtues. The governmental coalition in Chisinau composed of the Liberal Party, the Moldova Noastra Alliance, the Liberal Democratic Party and the Social Democratic Party, together with the Mayor General Dorin Chirtoaca - one of the leaders of the Liberal Party - had held all the levers needed to return to the privatization of the municipal radio and TV stations for a year, but did nothing. Most probably, nothing could be done in this case, but a position expressed trenchantly would have reduced the attempts to use mass media as tool in the political fight. Nothing was done and therefore neither the current Opposition nor the current government is ready to accept another role for the press than of instrument in their own hands. For sure, the civil society was harmed in this media war as its rights to obtain correct and objective information and to consciously choose the best are not respected.