The election runners continue to use administrative resources in the election campaign, do not declare all the campaigning costs and use hate and discriminatory speech, says the third May 20 mayoral elections monitoring report produced by the Observation Mission of Promo-LEX Association, IPN reports.
Compared with the previous monitoring period, the electoral contenders offered more electoral presents, 17 overall. They didn’t declare all the incurred costs, with some of them considerably exceeding the ceiling. The undeclared costs were estimated at 1.144 million lei at least. These were mainly for street advertising and promotional materials.
The Observation Mission established that in the electoral period President Igor Dodon became involved in the election campaign of the Socialist candidate for mayor of Chisinau Ion Ceban and in that of the Socialist candidate for mayor of Balti Alexandr Usatyi. The involvement of the Head of State in agitation in favor of an electoral contestant can also be regarded as use of administrative resources in favor of the mentioned candidates.
Promo-LEX identified new cases of use of hate, discriminatory and sexist speech and other forms of public intolerance in the messages of candidates. There were identified two election runners affected by different forms of intolerance, both representing the Party “Platform Dignity and Truth”. Candidate for Chisinau mayoralty Andrei Nastase used hate speech and discriminatory messages in three of the four identified cases, while candidate for Balti mayoralty Arina Spataru in one case.
On the other side, the Socialist candidate for mayor of Chisinau Ion Ceban incited discrimination, suggesting he will limit the right to expression and assembly of a group of persons owing to their sexual orientation. Also, candidate for mayor of Balti of the Shor Party Pavel Verejan used stereotypes related to gender.
The mission of Promo-LEX also determined that only half of the polling places have ramps that enable wheelchair access, while 20% of the electoral offices are closed during the working hours.
The monitoring covered the period between May 1 and May 16. The finances of election runners were followed during April 28 – May 11.
