Campaign “Elect consciously! Elect freely!” is over

The voter information and education campaign “Elect consciously! Elect freely!”, which was carried out in April – July, ended with the organization of 25 public debates that involved over 300 people, Info-Prim Neo reports. In a national conference held to mark the end of the sixth campaign of the kind on July 12, campaign coordinator Ana Mihailov said the drive was aimed at heightening Moldovan people’s awareness of the electoral process so as to increase the level of political culture and the voter turnout in the elections of 2011. “Every year, we make effort to improve the content of this project so as to make it more efficient and to encourage our people to make a conscious choice,” said Ana Mihailov. Vasile Cioarec, project coordinator at Contact Center, said there were printed and distributed brochures, posters and voter’s guides that contained useful information about the electoral process in Moldova, the competences and powers of the public authorities, the ways of analyzing and appraising candidates’ platforms. He also said that new mobilization methods have been included this year, like the social theater and public debates that were later broadcast on the regional TV channels. The activities were carried out within the Election Monitoring and Voter Education in Moldova – Strengthening of Capacities and International Networking Project that was implemented by Contact Center and the German association European Exchange within the Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections in partnership with Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The financial support was provided by East Europe Foundation from the resources offered by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency and the Foreign Ministry of Denmark.