Mayor of Chisinau Dorin Chirtoaca was the public servant who most often appeared in the televised news items broadcast between November 1 and 8, outstripping Prime Minister Iurie Leanca, who topped the rankings in the first part of the election campaign, shows the third pre-electoral mass media monitoring report produced by the Association of Independent Press (API), the Association of Electronic Press (APEL) and the Independent Journalism Center (CJI) within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections. The report was presented in a news conference at IPN on November 13.
Dorin Chirtoaca and Iurie Leanca appeared 60 times and, respectively, 46 times in news bulletins. They are followed by President Nicolae Timofti (25 appearances), Head of Parliament Igor Corman (18), Minister of the Interior Dorin Recean (15), Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Vasile Bumacov (11), and Minister of Youth and Sport Octavian Bodisteanu (5).
Among politicians, the leader of the PDM Marian Lupu holds the lead with 34 appearances in news bulletins. He is followed by the leader of the PCRM Vladimir Voronin (29), the leader of the PLDM Vlad Filat (22), the leader of the PSRM Igor Dodon (20), the Governor of Gagauzia Mihai Formuzal (19), and the leader of the PL Mihai Ghimpu (18).
According to APEL director Vasile State, the representatives of the PDM most often appear on Canal 2, Canal 3, Publika and Prime TV, which favor this party. Owing to them and to Jurnal TV, which presents the Democrats mainly in a negative context, the PDM is the election runner with the largest number of appearances in news bulletins – 205. The PCRM comes next with 87 appearances, being followed by the PLDM (74), the PLR (63), the PL (55), and PSRM (52).
The monitoring was performed within a project financed by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Embassy in Moldova and East-Europe Foundation with the funds allocated by the Government of Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (DANIDA).
