The Central Election Commission (CEC) in Comrat was informed by law enforcement agencies about alleged actions to corrupt voters to influence them to vote one of the candidates for Bashkan of Gagauzia.

Contacted by IPN for details, the head of Gagauzia’s CEC Yana Kovalenko said that the submission is being examined and she cannot say if this and an eventual decision by the Commission can influence the holding of the runoff set for this Sunday. Most probably, something like this will not happen. The Commission will make public its position after it analyzes the provided information.

On May 7, the National Anticorruption Center announced that a number of searches were carried out in a case of corruption of voters by representatives of a political party to make them vote for a particular electoral contender at the election in Gagauzia. It was determined that each activist was paid by 15,000 lei for influencing 30 electors to vote for the Șor Party’s candidate. Among the violations of which the electoral staff of the Șor Party’s candidate is accused are the organized transportation of voters to polling stations for money, placing of electoral posters in prohibited places and acceptance of money that was allegedly received from an organized criminal group, without this being declared to the CEC.  No one was arrested.

A runoff vote is to be held in ATU Gagauzia to elect the Bashkan (Governor) of the region on May 14 as none of the candidates who competed in the April 30 election gained more than half of the cast votes. The runoff will involve the contenders who polled the largest number of votes, namely Grigorii Uzun, who runs independently, but is supported by the Party of Socialists, and Yevgenia Guțul, who represents the Șor Party.