The November 5 elections were held in a democratic way and also with many elements of a novelty. These refer to the conditions of conducting the elections, the new Electoral Code and the way in which election contenders chose to persuade the voters to support them, not always by absolutely legal ways, said experts invited to IPN’s public debate “Influence of acts of corruption on election process at local level”.

The reelected mayor of Leova town, Alexandru Bujorean, said that elements of political corruption were noticed at the recent elections, as every time. “These elections were used as a battlefield. When we speak about political or electoral corruption, we should treat this as a separate phenomenon. We must realize that political corruption or electoral corruption is a genetic mutation of systemic corruption in the Republic of Moldova and is a natural continuation of this. It derives from several aspects. On the one hand, there are enormous flows of money. I will make a comparison. I ran for the first time on the tick of a party that was created recently. We were mandated at country level by over 56,000 citizens. The costs incurred by the party for a vote were of about 4 lei. They were covered with donations made primarily by candidates. One the one hand, we speak about criminal political groupings that offer by 2,000-3,000 lei for a vote. How a classical, transparent, pro-European party that wants this country to develop and comes to contribute, including at the local level, can fight such a flow of money,” he stated.

Angela Kolatski, lecturer at the Department of Political and Administrative Sciences of the Moldova State University, said the upcoming local elections are special because they were organized in accordance with the new Electoral Code, which is a premiere. “I want to say that democracy slowly comes to our home, the Republic of Moldova. The democratic principles are respected. But we should not consider that democracy doesn’t imply a more rigorous control and prompt actions. Democracy is at home in the Republic of Moldova. Objectively, these local elections are special as they are held based on the new Electoral Code. It is a premiere. Even if the new Election Code, as spirit and as observance of the procedure is a continuation, it borrowed the consistency and spirit of the previous Electoral Code. Anyway, there are many new regulations,” stated Angela Kolatski.

Igor Bucătaru, head of the analysis team of Promo-LEX Association, noted that the particularities of the current elections derive from a number of factors: from the outlawing of a political party, exclusion of an election contender from the electoral competition up to the validation of the seats of the local elected officials by local electoral councils. “These elections were indeed special and will definitely serve as a basis for future discussions. There are many provisions that were tested at these elections and can probably serve as a basis for returning to discussions on them. The new Electoral Code was adopted nearly a year before the elections. At the same time, objective factors appeared and changed the rules of the game during the game. I refer to the outlawing of a party during the game, which is something of a novelty,” said Igor Bucătaru.

He also said that the process of confirming the legality of elections and of validating the seats is underway and it is for the first time that the electoral councils do this instead of courts, as until now. “This is a process we are supervising to see how it is implemented. In fact, we as an observation mission, disagreed with this from the start,” stated Igor Bucătaru.

The public debate entitled “Influence of acts of corruption on election process at local level” was staged by IPN as part of the project “Stimulation of discussion in the mass media about traditional particularities of local elections and the need for Europeanization” which is supported by Soros Foundation Moldova.