MAE denies puling out from election campaign

The European Action Movement (MAE) refutes the information that it withdraws from the election campaign broadcast by the press on Wednesday, Info-Prim Neo reports. The website of Jurnal de Chisinau this morning reported that the MAE pulls out of the election campaign, but did not say that it was an April 1 joke. “The European Action Movement denies the misleading information about its withdrawal from the election race,” the MAE president Anatol Petrencu told a news conference the same day. The MAE considers that the publication’s move has an electoral character and it seriously damages the party’s image. “The MAE considers that the diversion schemed by certain election contenders that are afraid of the MAE and used Jurnal de Chisinau is the result of the fact that the popular approval rating of the MAE in polls has considerably increased,” said Vitalia Pavlicenco, who is under number two in the MAE list. The organization demands that Jurnal de Chisinau publishes a denial on its first page on Thursday, April 2. Otherwise, the MAE would sue the publication for damages. Contacted by Info-Prim Neo, Aurel Cornescu, editor of Jurnal de Chisinau, said that the news story published on jurnal.md was an April 1 joke. “We have already published a denial on the papers’ website where the news item appeared and do not consider it necessary to publish a denial in the newspaper,” Cornescu said. ”The editorial staff of Jurnal de Chisinau apologizes to the visitors of the site and, especially, to the management and members of the MAE for the joke. Unlike other publications in Moldova, Jurnal can afford to publish erroneous news stories only once a year, on April 1, as the press in the whole world does on this day,” the denial says.