Ordinary elections to the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia take place this Sunday, September 19. The inhabitants of Gagauzia will choose their deputies for a new four-year term in 35 single-member constituencies. For the elections to be validated, the voter turnout in each of the constituencies should be of at least 1/3.

As many as 114,210 persons are expected to cast their ballots. The right to vote is exercised in the locality in which the voter has the domicile. If the person has domicile and residence, this votes in the locality in which there is the valid residence. The voters who didn’t register the domicile or whose residence expired will be unable to vote on September 19.

The persons who for health reasons cannot go to the polling station can ask to vote at the place of stay. Applications for the mobile ballot box will be filed in written form on Saturday until 6pm and on Sunday until 3pm.

A number of 115,350 ballots were printed for the first round of the elections to the People’s Assembly. Of these, 108,307 are in Russian, 3,974 are in the Gagauz language, while 3,069 are in the Romanian language.

As many as 122 candidates are running in the September 19 elections. Two candidates withdrew earlier. This is the lowest number of candidates registered after the first elections to the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia, of 1995. Over 4/5 of the candidates preferred to run as independents.

If none of the candidates in a constituency polls at least half of the voters of the electors, runoffs are held in two weeks for the two candidates who gained most of the votes in the first round.

The elections to the People’s Assembly of Gagauzia will be overseen by about 80 national observers and approximately 50 international observers.