The monitoring of the regional public broadcaster Teleradio-Gagauzia during the campaign preceding the election of the Governor of the Autonomous Territorial Unit organized better the electoral debates than in the period before the parliamentary elections. But the broadcaster did not offer free airtime to the election runners, says a monitoring report produced by the Electronic Press Association (APEL) within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections, Info-Prim Neo reports. Expert of the monitoring project Aneta Gonta told a news conference that the regional public broadcaster Teleradio-Gagauzia had a better performance than in the campaign for the November 28 early legislative elections. The report shows that Vlad Filat appeared most often in the political news stories on TV Gagauzia. Marian Lupu and Vladimir Voronin followed next. Two of the three candidates for Governor – Mihail Formuzal and Nicolai Dudoglo – benefited from practically the same volume of airtime as Mihai Ghimpu. As regards the electoral debates, the Communist candidate for Governor Irina Vlah took part in all the programs held in the first round. In the second round, Mihail Formuzal was present at fewer debate programs than his opponent Nicolai Dudoglo. Radio Gagauzia in its news bulletins favored the candidates for Governor rather than other political players. The volume of airtime devoted to Nicolai Dudoglo and Mihail Formuzal was larger than the aggregate volume devoted to another eight political players on whom Radio Gagauzia focused in the period. At the same time, Teleradio-Gagauzia offered free airtime to the election runners neither for presenting their programs nor for advertisements, Aneta Gonta said. The broadcaster violated the legislation when it aired the election ads of a runner for longer than two minutes a day. It also flagrantly broke the national legislation when it broadcast election ads for Nicolae Dudoglo the days preceding the elections – on December 11 and 25. The APEL report also shows that in the second round of voting for the Governor of Gagauzia, Teleradio-Gagauzia as well as Radio Gagauzia stopped broadcasting civic education advertisements. However, in general Teleradio-Gagauzia observed the deontological norms in its political programs. The monitoring report “Monitoring of Political Plurality in the News Programs of Teleradio-Moldova and Teleradio- Gagauzia” was compiled by APEL with support from Soros Foundation Moldova within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections.