CEC and BCC waiting for proposals for regulations on coverage of election campaign

The radio and TV stations will enjoy more freedom in covering the election campaign, said the heads of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) and the Central Election Commission (CEC), Info-Prim Neo reports. “We will not oblige the mass media organizations to invite candidates. We will only set the normative framework, while they will agree the criteria for holding debates,” CEC president Iurie Ciocan said in a roundtable meeting held jointly with the BCC on March 30. The meeting centered on the drafting of the conception and regulations concerning the coverage of the campaign for the local elections of 2011. Iurie Ciocan voiced hope that the amendments to the Election Code that give the broadcasters more freedom will be passed until the elections, even if the international organizations do not welcome the modification of the legislation before elections. He said that equal, nondiscriminatory conditions should be created when allocating airtime and time for advertisements. BCC chairman Marian Pocaznoi proposed that the debates should be held at local level. If the settlement does not have a radio station or TV channel, the debates should be organized by the national stations. But they should involve not local candidates, but representatives of the administration of the party of which they form part. Marian Pocaznoi stressed that time for advertisements should be allotted firstly to the parliamentary parties and then to the other parties. The representatives of the mass media organizations and of the political parties have ten days to formulate proposals for the regulations on the coverage of the election campaign.