Radio Moldova director to be elected today

The director of Radio Moldova is to be elected today (Feb.6) by the Supervisory Board of the national broadcasting company TeleRadio-Moldova, Info-Prim Neo reports. The appointment of the national television channel, Moldova 1, has been postponed until a later date. The Board will elect the director from among 10 candidates: Oleg Brega, Serghei Scinteian, Eduard Maciac, Oleg Grajdean, Vlad Turcanu, Ecaterina Stratan, Ion Mazur, Marin Alla, Alexandru Dorogan and Angela Sirbu. Although the Board planned today to appoint a director for Moldova 1 as well, the issue had to be postponed under a decision by the Court of Appeals, which is hearing the appeal of the dismissed director, Adela Railean. Yesterday the Board appointed Constantin Marin, dean of the State University's Journalism Department, as president of TeleRadio-Moldova. At the end of last year, the Supervisory Board discharged the top three executives of the national broadcasting company. The decision was explained on shortcomings identified by monitoring reports, including by the Council of Europe and the Electronic Press Association, namely the loss of credibility, transformation of the public broadcaster into a political instrument, infringement of the right to expression, lack of impartiality and pluralism, etc. The sacked TeleRadio director, Valentin Todercan, dismissed the accusations as political retaliation and promised to appeal the decision in court. Later, the Court of Appeals accepted the complaint submitted by Alela Railean, the director of the television channel, but rejected the appeal submitted by Todecran.