Investigative journalism has recently intensified, but the responsible state institutions only monitor and inform and do not take measures to stop the signaled violations because there are political interests that prevent these institutions from discontinuing the negative practices in campaigns, the standing expert of IPN’s project Igor Boțan stated in the public debate “About old and new faults of electoral process 2020 inveigled by the press and old and new faults of the press, unveiled by electoral process” that was staged by IPN News Agency.

According to the expert, the authorities’ inaction is due to the existing political interests and because
“politics is the most profitable business”.

In another development, Igor Boțan said the legislation should be amended so that the word “equal” in the text “treatment of electoral contenders should be equal” is replaced with “nondiscriminatory” as the TV channels are obliged by law to offer equal airtime to candidates in elections, but this condition often cannot be met because some of the electoral contenders do not generate events. It is not possible to present everyone so as to obey the law.

The expert noted that he now started to disagree with the objections that the candidates promise things that are not within the President’s remit. He gave the example of ex-President Vladimir Voronin, who made promises and after the elections gathered together a group of experts who designed different projects. The main candidates in the current campaign do the same as they say that they present a global country view. If they are elected, they become national leaders and no government will oppose such a leader. But the disparity resides in the fact that the President is elected by the whole nation, but has only ceremonial duties.

Igor Boțan also said that during years of monitoring, he didn’t see electoral competitors fulfilling more than 30% of their promises after being elected.  “We should make a difference between the undertaken commitments that are not fulfilled for particular reasons and those that are not fulfilled in order not to cause harm to someone,” he concluded.

The debate “About old and new faults of electoral process 2020 inveigled by the press and old and new faults of the press, unveiled by electoral process” was the sixth installment of the electoral series “We and the President: who elects who, who represents who” that is supported by the Hanns Seidel Foundation.