Vlad Țurcan said Moldovan jury’s score of three points for Romania’s entry failed to recognise sensitivities between neighbours
www.theguardian.com
It is one of the unwritten laws of the annual celebration of silliness and tight trousers that is Eurovision: neighbouring countries, and blocs with strong cultural and political ties – think the Nordics, Greece and Cyprus, the former Soviet states – tend to mark each other high.
The song contest’s “neighbourhood voting” has even been the subject of learned studies. But its role has rarely been as explicitly acknowledged as this year, when the head of Moldova’s public broadcaster felt he had to resign because his country’s jury gave only three points to next-door Romania.
The same jury gave nul points to Moldova’s other neighbour, Ukraine, while awarding a maximum 12 points to Poland and 10 to Israel. The Moldovan public, by contrast, whose votes also count in the contest’s final result, gave the full 12 points to Romania and 10 to Ukraine.
After hundreds of fans took to social media in protest, Vlad Țurcan, the director of Teleradio-Moldova, resigned on Monday, describing the jury’s failure to recognise “sensitivities” between neighbours as “extraordinary” and “serious”.
Țurcanu added: “Our stance toward Ukraine is not one of zero points, and our feelings toward Romania can only be ones of love. We have distanced ourselves from the jury’s voting, but this is still … my responsibility, as head of this institution.”
