The public announcing by parties of their candidates for mayor is not in accordance with the electoral calendar. According to Promo-LEX Association, which launched an election observation mission, the designation of candidates ahead of time can affect the principle of equality of chances of election contenders and contributes, to a particular extent, to the avoidance of the legal provisions on election campaign funding, IPN reports.
In its first monitoring report on the local general elections of November 5, Promo-LEX ascertained that at least 13 political parties publicly presented their candidates for the mayoralty of Chisinau. Concomitantly, two party leaders announced that they intend to run for mayor of Chisinau: Ion Ceban (MAN) and Vasile Costiuc (Democracy at Home Party). In the case of the mayoralty of Balti, Nicolae Grigorishin (PS) announced his intention to run for this.
Promo-LEX also identified several cases of abusive use of administrative resources by spending public budget funds for obtaining political benefits. The observers determined that evidently electoral informative material was designed in an unplanned way and this material can be treated as progress reports of the LPAs. This is against the law on advertising, which provides that the messages of public interest cannot contain information about the managerial accomplishments and/or objectives achieved by public sector entities.
Another case of use of administrative resources involved the PSRM, which distributed newspapers to promote its candidate for mayor of Chisinau Adrian Albu. In the papers, the PSRM assumed merits for multiple activities carried out at the level of the Chisinau Municipal Council with public funds.
A number of 898 mayors, over 11,000 local councilors and 1,086 district or municipal councilors are to be elected in the local general elections this year. In the observation mission, Promo Lex will involve the central team consisting of about 20 persons, 40 long-term observers who will work in districts during three months. On election day, 100% of the polling stations in Chisinau and Balti will be overseen by observers of Promo-LEX, as will be another 200 polling stations in the county, where static observers will work. A number of 140 observers will form 70 mobile teams and will oversee voting at other polling stations than those where there will be static observers.
