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The chairman of the Alliance Our Moldova (AMN), Serafim Urechean, has held a news conference and called on political parties and organisations of civil societies to join their efforts in order to create a movement for fair elections. The movement would monitor the conduct of the electoral campaign for early local elections in Chisinau. Urechean called including on parties which he regards as part of the «ruling coalition» (Democratic Party, Christian Democratic People’s Party, and Social Liberal Party), whose leaders supported the re-election of Vladimir Voronin as chief of state. Urechean motivated his initiative through the fact that he does not back any candidate to the Chisinau mayor post. The June 27 appeal to residents of Chisinau to support independent candidate Dumitru Braghis was explained through a decision of the AMN National Political Council. Also, the AMN leader said that his advisers committed a mistake when they announced mass media institutions that AMN and Patria-Rodina alone create an election monitoring alliance.

Urechean brought the following arguments in favour of the need of a movement to monitor the elections: a) Moldova’s general electoral climate has deteriorated; b) authorities commit the same abuses during campaigns for parliamentary elections and early local elections; c) the election day was deliberately set for July 10, in the mid-summer, so that the candidate of the Party of Moldovan Communists (PCRM) benefit from absence of active citizens and votes of citizens who cannot afford vacations; d) the PCRM candidate benefits from media and administrative resources controlled by government; e) opposition candidates who hold great chances face obstructions.

The results of monitoring will be released through reports.

Independent candidate Mihai Severovan decided to stop the broadcasting of an electoral add which comprises images from the song «Boonika Bate Doba», after the public broadcaster TeleRadio-Moldova has accused him of violation of legislation on electoral advertising, saying that the «brutal and illegal use of others’ intellectual property for own goals by candidate Severovan is inadmissible, because this action could harm including the image of the music band Zdob-si-Zdub.»

The TeleRadio-Moldova manager said in an appeal to the Central Election Commission (CEC), Chisinau Constituency Election Council (CECC), and the electronic media watchdog CCA that «excerpts from the song “Boonika Bate Doba” are used in the add of candidate Mihai Severovan.

TeleRadio-Moldova holds a document signed by Zdob-si-Zdub, which prohibits the electoral competitors to use excerpts from the song “Boonika Bate Doba” or images featuring the band members for electoral purposes. TeleRadio-Moldova alone holds the copyright to this song in Moldova.

In turn, Mihai Severovan said that TeleRadio-Moldova is an institution which serves the ruling party and tries to halt the broadcasting of advertising of other candidates.» (By REPORTER.MD)