M1 public television promotes visibility of president Voronin and of PCRM in middle of electoral race, show data of monitoring

Moldova 1, the TV station paid from the tax-payers' money, favors certain electoral competitors, as a rule – exponents of the governance, and unfavors others, especially the exponents of the political opposition. The same behavior is displayed by the private stations N4 and NIT. It's one of the conclusions of the second monitoring report on 9 Moldovan TV stations, made by the APEL Electronic Press Press Association. The report was presented on Monday, March 2, at Info-Prim Neo agency. The stations Pro TV, TV7, TVC21 and to smaller extent, Eu TV, roughly observe the professional requirements in editing news. It's the first monitoring report of those 9 broadcasters during the electoral campaign, after APEL had presented a similar report about their behavior in the election period. “The monitoring authors find that of three TV channels having national coverage, two – Prime and 2Plus – shirked from mirroring the elections. This fact speaks about an extremely inefficient usage of terrestrial frequencies which are national assets and which do not serve to adequately inform the citizens about an event of major importance,” reads a communique distributed by APEL. President Vladimir Voronin has been the mostly publicized political actor, while the Communists Party (PCRM) – is the mostly publicized institutionalized actor in the first two weeks of the race, the observers conclude. “Judging by the way of airing the ads, by who has chosen what TV stations, a trend is seen: the political parties which were favored in the pre-election campaign by certain TV stations, now give electoral advertising to those stations,” said Ion Bunduchi, APEL's executive manager. Thus, from February 4 to 17, Eu TV aired electoral ads of only the Christian Democrats (PPCD), N4 aired only the PCRM's ads, and M1 and NIT – main ads of the PCRM. The monitoring reports are sent international and national bodies interested in the democratic developments of Moldova. APEL's project is financed by the Delegation of the European Commission in Moldova and is running within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009. It pursues to contribute to ensuring a fair, transparent and democratic electoral process and to form professional skills in television to present the politicians fairly and impartially.