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‘Editorials that wanted to present the 20 May vote results in advance had to inspect the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) webpage code.’ This was the answer of the CEC Chairwoman, Alina Russu, to the solicitation signed by a group of media outlets and media non-governmental organizations, which requested CEC to explain how was it possible that Publika TV private television website posted the first election results in real time, before the electoral authority did, fully preserving CEC and 2018 Local Anticipated Elections specific design and insignia?
CEC argues that the election results data were published on unclassified websites and they ‘could be viewed by “clicking” the right mouse button, on the page www.cec.md and selecting the “view page source” option’. CEC states that ‘an elementary inspection and analysis of the webpage code easily allowed identifying and retrieving these data, and some media institutions did so’.
The Commission also said that no privileged treatment has been applied to any TV station in this regard and live-s were posted on the CEC Facebook page.
The UNIMEDIA director and one of the solicitation signatories, Cristian Jardan, argued that the answer to the main question is unclear from the CEC’s reply to the editorials: how was it possible for a private media institution to present the elections results before CEC did? ‘We accessed the website, but it did not work for us. And their answer could not explain exactly and clearly why Publika TV offered the data before CEC did’, Jardan told Media-azi.md.
The signatories also requested that CEC establishes a mechanism whereby any media institution has equal and fair access to all data processed by the Commission. At their turn, CEC responded that they are open to all means of information.
We remind that on Monday, 21 May, Unimedia.info, Diez.md, AGORA.md, Ziarul de Gradă, TV 8, Independent Journalism Centre and Association of Independent Press sent a solicitation to CEC to explain how it was possible for Publika TV private television website to post the first election results in real time, before the electoral authority did.
Publika TV reacted to this solicitation by stating that they became ‘the attacks target’ and that data presented in real time on Publika.md and Publika TV were accessed from the CEC website.
