MPs intend to prohibit political advertising outside election campaigns

On Wednesday, 2 April, the head of the Parliamentary Committee for Culture, Education, Science, Youth, Sport and Mass Media Chiril Lucinschi presented to Committee members a draft law on prohibiting political advertising outside election campaigns.
 
The draft provides for amending two laws: the Law on Advertising and the Broadcasting Code. It proposes introducing into the first law the notion of “political advertising,” defined as “any form of communication whose declared goal is changing people’s attitudes towards a political party, politician or political message.” Also, it proposes supplementing Article 8 of this law with a new paragraph, according to which “political advertising shall be prohibited except during election campaigns,” and supplementing Article 19 of the Broadcasting Code with a new paragraph concerning the prohibition of political advertising outside election times.
 
Chiril Lucinschi, MP representing the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova (LDPM), appealed to Committee members to sign this draft law for it to be registered in the Parliament. “We must make sure that citizens are not misled by someone with much money. In our country political advertising is equal to commercial advertising. No country has anything like this. Political advertising shall be allowed only during election campaigns,” Chiril Lucinschi said.
 
On the other hand, socialist MP Ion Cebanu believes that the draft is antidemocratic and directed against his party (because the Party of Socialists has had several advertisements on television lately – editor’s note). “We believe that this draft is directed against socialists, in the first place, meaning to say that we are doing politics. In fact, we are telling people what is happening in the country, how the government is behaving. They don’t like it. No country where the government is claiming to be heading to has such an approach. First, it is antidemocratic; second, it a new step towards intimidation of the opposition,” Cebanu said.
 
Communist MP Alexandr Petkov appeared surprised by this draft coming from the LDPM. “I was deeply astonished simply because this draft was initiated by Vlad Filat’s colleagues. It is probably plausible. I want to know what the colleagues of Mr. Filat are seeking, considering that the majority of political advertising is coming from him. We’ll see how things develop.” Alexandr Petcov also specified that the Party of Communists will not vote on this draft on principle. “The PCRM won’t vote with this government the laws it is proposing. They initiated all wrongdoings in broadcasting, so they should take responsibility for them,” Petcov concluded. 

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