The early parliamentary elections in Moldova met many standards, but highlighted the necessity of implementing democratic reforms in order to restore the people’s trust in the political class, considers the International Election Observation Mission, a joint initiative of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the OSCE (OSCE/ODIHR), the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament. The preliminary conclusions were presented at a news conference on Thursday by Petros Efthymiou, the head of the delegation of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and special coordinator of OSCE short-term observers, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, the head of the delegation of the CE Parliamentary Assembly, Marian-Jean Marinescu, the head of the delegation of the European Parliament, and Ambassador Boris Frlec, the head of the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission. The foreign observers said the elections were conducted in a generally good manner and created conditions for competition. Petros Efthzioa, Boris Filec, Klos Bergman, Mevlut Cavuso and Marian-Jean Marinecu told a news conference on July 30 that the election day was well-planned and calm, while the identified irregularities concerned mainly the registers of voters. However, some of the electoral offices met with difficulties in filling our the reports on the election results, while about half of the offices did not post these reports to be examined by the public. The electronic data processing worked well and allowed publishing the results very quickly, the foreign observers said. At the same time, they expressed dissatisfaction with the fact that Moldova did not introduce the Electronic Register, as it pledged, because it would have enabled to check the electoral rolls. More irregularities were discovered during the electoral campaign, which was marked by tensions and mutual accusations between the ruling party and the Opposition, especially concerning the April 7 events. Also, the administrative resources were widely used. The international observers spoke about cases of intimidation of the voters and candidates, including the interruption of the meetings of the Opposition parties by provokers. The behavior of the mass media was inappropriate. The observers said that three TV channels with national coverage, including the public channel Moldova 1, failed to impartially cover the events involving the election runners, being biased towards the PCRM. Moldova is under monitoring, but it still lags behind in many areas like the press and the legal system, the observers stressed. The observers did not want to say what mark they will give the parliamentary elections. Asked if they want polls of such a standard in their own counties, the observers said: “We cannot compare the democracies as the level of democracy in our countries is different. It is important that this democracy is close to the international standards.” The July 29 legislative elections were overseen by 2,672 national and 488 foreign observers.