International observers say presidential polls organized professionally, yet with infringements

Chisinau, 31 October /MOLDPRES/ - The presidential elections from 30 October 2016 have been competitive and well-organized; yet, deficiencies were recorded too, which affected the holding of the ballot to a small extent. These are the conclusions by international observers of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE PA), made public at a news conference today.   

The international observers showed contented with the way the polls had been organized and possibility of women’s involvement in politics by holding leadership offices within district councils.  

“After analyzing the carrying out of the presidential elections, we found out that Moldova has possibilities to align to European standards in terms of organizing ballots. A thing which impressed us and which was not found in the earlier polls is the fact that about three fourths of all the staff involved in the process of organizing the presidential polls represented women. This moment proves that the authorities speak out for gender equality in the public life, especially the political one,” the PACE representative said.  

At the same time, the observers discovered a string of infringements committed both by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) and other decision-makers, which participated in the voting process. They referred to the lack of transparency in the financing of political parties involved in the electoral race, limiting of exercising of the right to vote of disabled and elderly people, by the absence of platforms of access to polling stations.     

Also, the international observers paid special attention to the coverage of the presidential elections by the media. According to them, the latter “showed lack of fairness, impartiality, transparency and proved political affiliation.”

Also today, the mission of observers on the behalf of the Community of Independent States (CIS) described the polls as legal, fair and free. According to the Secretary General of the Council of the CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly Aleksey Sergeev, the international observers “have not discovered major irregularities during the ballot, just small technical deficiencies and incidents; yet, they did not affect the voting process.”     

PACE and OSCE had 240 observers at the parliamentary elections.

The Central Electoral Commission accredited 3,764 observers in the 2,023 polling stations of Moldova and from abroad, of whom 3,202 national observers and 562 international ones.