In 18 constituencies, the deputies of the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia were elected in the September 17 elections. A runoff vote will be held in another 19 constituencies on October 3. In 11 constituencies, none of the candidates gained at least half of the vote, while in six constituencies the elections weren’t declared valid owing to the low voter turnout, IPN reports.

The candidates elected in the first round are: Elena Iurcenco (constituency No.7), Alexandr Toporaș (constituency No. 8), Dmitrii Topal (constituency No. 9), Alexandr Dinjos (constituency No. 11), Ivan Caraja (constituency No. 14), Leonid Chiosea (constituency No. 16), Fiodor Ianioglo (constituency No. 17), Nicolai Raia (constituency No. 18), Nicolai Andrușoi (constituency No. 19), Dmitrii Constantinov (constituency No. 21), Valentin Gaidarji (constituency No. 23), Mihail Jelezoglo (constituency No. 25), Dmitrii Manastîrlî (constituency No. 31), Nicolai Ormanji (constituency No. 32), Ilia Uzun (constituency No. 33) and Sergey Cimpaeș (constituency No. 35).

In another 13 constituencies, none of the candidates polled at least half of the vote and a runoff vote involving the two candidates who gained most of the votes in the first round will be held in two weeks.

Elections in two weeks will also take place in six constituencies in which an insufficient number of voters cast their ballots last Sunday. For the elections to be validated, the turnout in the runoff should be of over 1/3 of the voters.

The People’s Assembly of Gagauzia has 35 deputies who are electret in 35 single-member constituencies. The ordinary elections held on September 19 involved 122 candidates. Over 4/5 of the competitors run as independents. Twenty one candidates represented the Bloc of Communists and Socialist’s, while two candidates - the Party “Building Europe at Home”.