Behavior of some electoral competitors undermines competitiveness of electoral process: observing NGO

Some electoral competitors display conducts undermining the competitiveness of the electoral process, despite the repeated warnings from observers. This is the conclusion of a monitoring report, launched on Thursday, April 2, by the League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADOM), part of the Coalition for Free and Fair Elections – Coalition 2009, Info-Prim Neo reports. “During the monitoring period (March 18 – April 2), the activities in the electoral campaign unfolded legally. Nevertheless, LADOM found many encroachments. The repeated character of these encroachments arouses doubts regarding the competitiveness of the electoral process,” said Paul Strutzescu, the president of LADOM. According to LADOM, some electoral competitors evince an indecent behavior and lack of ethics towards other competitors and resort to dirty procedures to discredit the image of their political opponents. Despite the previous warnings, some competitors went on using the administrative resources in the electoral campaign. At the same time, the LADOM observers signaled cases of intimidating and misusing the representatives of the electoral competitors by the representatives of the local public administration. The local authorities continued to exert pressure and to intimidate voters by administrative ways. Pressures on media representatives and electoral observers continued, too. The national network of LADOM observers (2,012 observers accredited by the Central Election Commission) will continue monitoring the electoral campaign. A special report related to the unfolding of the election day will be published immediately after finishing the ballot. Further, a final monitoring report will be made public.