Several public and private stations continue to broadcast information favouring the ruling party

The public stations Moldova 1, Radio Moldova, the private stations with national coverage NIT, “Antena C” and N4 continue to broadcast in the electoral campaign news and opinions which directly or indirectly favour the ruling party, avoiding news that disfavor it or critical opinions about it. Opposition parties are mainly present through the information provided by electoral commissions and through electoral publicity. On “Euro TV” the same favouring attitude is registered in the case of the ruling party and the People’s Christian Democrat Party. At the same time, News and programs on PRO TV, TV 7 and Vocea Basarabiei reflected a more varied range of events and political actors, without favoring any party in particular, these being the only stations that do not favour the ruling party. These are the findings of the second report (April 25 – May 26) of the Independent Press Association (IPA) and the Independent Journalism Centre (IJC), part of the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections 2007. The Coalition monitors 10 TV and radio stations and 14 national and local newspapers. IPA chairman Petru Macovei told a news conference on Thursday, May 10 that the “situation heats up” in the press, as a number of pro-government newspapers published libelous materials about some opposition parties. Most of local public newspapers and the former central public newspapers - Moldova Suverana and Nezavisimaia Moldova - continued to favor PCRM, whereas most private newspapers, with a few exceptions, criticized PCRM, but without openly supporting any opposition party. Executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT) Igor Botan considers as defiance the fact that the ruling party placed electoral posters on the pillars in front of the Central Election Commission (CEC), as this institution should oversee the entire electoral process. Also, the fence in front of the US Embassy was stuck with posters immediately after the US officials warned about the necessity of ensuring a fair electoral campaign. At the same time, a defiance of the rest of candidates is according to Botan the organisation by the communists of the concert of Filip Kirkorov. According to the same source, seven parties said that administrative pressure were put on the members of their parties in order to become the candidates of the government party or independent candidates. In this context, Botan mentioned that it is important how the opposition will react, which could ask CEC to debate these actions. “But this thing is not happening, so we can in a way admit that the ruling party acts within the limits allowed by the rest of electoral competitors”, Botan mentioned. Director of the League for the Protection of Human Rights of Moldova (LADOM) Paul Strutzescu mentioned referring to the report of the organisation on the elections, that a series of positive trends were registered in the activity of CEC, including the fact that the Conduct Code on the organisation of the electoral campaign and the Regulation on the way of placing the electoral advertisement were passed, and the amount of loans granted to the candidates was established. At the same time, LADOM is concerned about the unjustified involvement of the law enforcement bodies in the electoral process, intimidation of the supporters of the candidates, lack of transparency in what concerns the financing of the candidates and equal conditions for all the candidates etc. The project is implemented in partnership with the Institute of Marketing and Surveys IMAS-INC Chisinau. The monitoring period is 10 April 2007 – 17 June 2007. The results are made public by means of fortnightly reports in the first monitoring month and weekly reports in the following months. The project is financed by Eurasia Foundation, from the funds of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the OSCE Mission to Moldova.