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The Social Democratic Party (PSD) has submitted a complaint with the National Council for Audiovisual (CNA), the broadcasting watchdog, requesting that President Klaus Iohannis speak in the electoral space of the National Liberal Party (PNL), mentioning that the speech of the head of state on Tuesday, "with obvious, direct electoral messages for and in favor of the National Liberal Party," was broadcast during informative broadcasts.
"When you're a politruk and not a president, you must be treated as such. Thus, today (e.n. - Wednesday) we submitted a complaint to the CNA by which we requested that Iohannis speak in the electoral space of the PNL. The President's messages do not present activities of the presidential institution, but electoral propaganda from the highest rostrum of the Romanian state in favor of the PNL. Iohannis infringed the Constitution and the law! And common sense! It's time he pay for it too. Including on December 6, at the polls," wrote Marcel Ciolacu, chairman of the PSD, on Wednesday, on Facebook.
The PSD representatives mention in the complaint addressed to the CNA that the live intervention of President Klaus Iohannis, on November 24, having as a pretext the celebration of one year since the presidential elections of 2019, was broadcast during an informative broadcast, not in an electoral broadcast, "and the material broadcast does not present activities of the President, but obvious, direct electoral messages for and in favor the National Liberal Party, yet obviously denigrating towards another electoral competitor," namely the PSD.
"Complementary, in this context, we emphasize that the elements subjected to analysis are even more grave as the fundamental law (art. 80 of the Constitution) expressly forbids the President to be involved in the electoral campaign, by his exclusion from the sphere of political affiliation, his role being eminently as a mediator. At the same time, through this intervention that took place live Mr. Klaus Iohannis put broadcasters in difficulty as an apparently informative broadcast about the activity of the President converted abruptly into an electoral broadcast, preventing them from respecting their obligations assumed through the documents submitted to the CNA regarding the way in which they reflect in their programming the electoral campaign. (...) Through the live intervention of President Klaus Iohannis he obtained, in fact, illicitly, for the National Liberal Party, additional broadcast time for electoral broadcasts, infringing art. 8, paragraph 3 of the CNA Decision no. 603 of October 21, 2020. By broadcasting the speech of President Klaus Iohannis in which he is electioneering for the National Liberal Party, this party obtained illegally additional time for the broadcasting electoral propaganda material, by eluding the imperative rules of presetting of concrete allotted segments," the PSD representatives also say.
The Social Democrats also state that the President is electioneering for the PNL and is "denigrating another electoral competitor", the PSD, "contrary to the exigencies of a democratic society and his constitutional prerogatives."
