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Who Are the Candidates Nominated by the Parliament for the Position of the Broadcasting Council Member?

25 June 2020
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The Parliamentary Committee on the Media nominated three candidates for the position of the member of the Broadcasting Council (BC), remained vacant by the end of the previous year. The vacancies might be occupied by Ala Ursu-Antoci, Larisa Manole, and Ion Robu. The candidates are supposed to be approved by the plenary of the legislative authority.
 
According to the draft decision signed by the president of the committee, Adrian Lebedinschi, and registered by the Parliament on June 22, the candidates were selected by “public entities” and interviewed by the committee in charge. It is suggested that Ala Ursu-Antoci and Larisa Manole could hold the position of the AC member until December 7, 2023, and Ion Robu could be appointed until April 3, 2021, i.e. for less than a year.
 
According to the published CVs, Larisa Manole is currently an editor at Moldpres State Information Agency, and from 2008 to 2017, she was the press officer of the Liberal Democratic Party of Moldova. Previously, she also worked for Euro TV, reporter.md, and Teleradio-Moldova.


Larisa Manole, atTeleradio-Moldova. Photo: Unica.md
 
Ala Ursu-Antoci currently is the head of the cabinet of the Socialist Party faction at the Parliament and a lecturer at the College of Ecology. From 2015 to 2019, she held the post of a counselor in the office of the president of the PSRM faction. In addition, she was ranked 43rd in the list of electoral contestants in the national constituency for the 2019 parliamentary elections.


Ala Ursu-Antoci, at Accent TV. Photo: Accent TV

Ion Robu is the editor-in-chief of “Știința culturii fizice” magazine at the State University of Physical Education and Sports. From 2007 to 2018, he was an editor at Moldpres. Previously, he worked at BASA-press, Flux, Fotbal hebdo, Săptămâna, Moldova Sportivă, Cuvântul, and other publications.

 

Ion Robu. Photo: Moldpres.
 
A Scandalous Start
 
The competition for the appointment of the new council members was preceded by accusations. The opposition referred to the statement that the PSRM and the DP deputies had presumably vitiated the competition by appointing politically affiliated persons. In fact, initially, the Permanent Bureau of the Parliament approved four candidacies for taking part in the competition to fill two vacancies: Victor Focsa, Larisa Manole, Ala Ursu-Antoci, and Vadim Misin. At that point, Ion Robu was not included in the list, and the attempts made by Media Azi to obtain the CVs of all the candidates failed. Alexandr Slusari, DA Platform deputy, had previously mentioned for Media Azi that the Bureau had not accepted two candidates offered by the faction he represented, speaking about Angela Arama and Nelly Sambria. His party colleague and vice-president of the committee in charge, Vasile Nastase, declared that the party would address the Constitutional Court in connection with the competition.
 
The PSRM rejected the accusations, and the DP made no comment on the subject.
 
According to the Code of Audiovisual Media Services, the BC shall consist of nine members, two suggested by the Parliament, one by the President and the Government, and another five by civil society organizations selected as a result of the public competition by the parliamentary committee in charge. Currently, six members are part of the Broadcasting Council, after Dorina Curnic, Veronica Cojocaru, and Olga Gututui resigned last year after invoking the danger of politicizing the authority.

Sursa foto: Media Azi