Opposition accuses parliamentary majority of rigging vote for BCC membership

Moldova's Parliament on Thursday appointed Marian Pokaznoi and Ignat Vasilache to serve as members of the Broadcasting Coordination Council (BCC) for a 6-year term, a decision endorsed by the vote of the Communist and Christian-Democrat MPs. The opposition lawmakers accused the parliamentary majority of rigging the voting procedure, Info-Prim Neo reports. According to the standard procedure, BCC members are appointed by Parliament with the vote of a three-fifth majority, and as scrutineers counted 64 and 62 pro votes, respectively, opposition MPs questioned the accuracy of the counting. “The vote has been rigged”, declared MP Leonid Bujor of the Moldova Noastra Alliance (AMN), backed by Democrat leader Dumitru Diacov, who fumed: “Don't cheat! Don't play us for some fools!”. AMN criticized the appointment as being favorable only to the Communist Party (PCRM ) and the Christian Democratic People's Party (PPCD). MP Anatol Onceanu of AMN stated: “the Broadcasting Code, passed by the red-orange coalition, introduced procedures for nominating and appointing members to the BCC and to Teleradio's Supervisory Board which expose these two extremely important institutions to political control from the Communists and the Christian Democrats”. “Hundreds of nongovernmental organizations may nominate candidates for BCC membership, but only those preselected by Tkaciuk and Rosca will pass and will be then appointed by the amicable and unanimous vote of PCRM and PPCD”, he said. In retort, Deputy Speaker Iurie Rosca, who is also the president of PPCD, stated that the Broadcasting Code had received expert assent from various international institutions before being adopted. Rosca said that “not in a single country of the world are the BCC members appointed by the opposition or nongovernmental organizations, but, as a rule, by the simple parliamentary majority”. Marian Pokaznoi has been working as a consultant at the BCC's licensing department since 2006. The nomination was put forward by the National Unions Confederation. Ignat Vasilache is a journalist and also president of an NGO called the Saint George Peasant Cartel. He was MP on behalf of PPCD in the period 2003-2005. The two posts in the BCC fell vacant on October 20 when the terms of Valeriu Frumusachi and Vlad Turcanu expired.