The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections that consists of several tens of nongovernmental organizations resumed work in a bid to monitor the election campaign and the parliamentary elections of this autumn.
The Coalition works during each electoral cycle. In a news conference at IPN on May 8, the Coalition’s secretary Polina Panainte said a number of recent activities showed the political parties are intensely preparing for the election campaign prior to the legislative elections. That’s why this period is opportune for starting the monitoring process. New regulations and a new roadmap of the Coalition were worked out to match the new political realities in Moldova. The Coalition will center on four areas, namely: monitoring of electoral processes, monitoring of the conduct of the media, civic and electoral education activities and activities aimed at ensuring everyone’s right to vote.
Igor Botan, executive director of the Association for Participatory Democracy (ADEPT), said the organization will monitor the observance of the electoral legislation, citizens’ electoral rights, how the electoral bodies work and how the electoral districts and polling places are set up.
Independent Journalism Center executive director Nadine Gogu said three NGOs will monitor the behavior of the media outlets during the election campaign. Activities will be carried out to remind the journalists how they should behave during the election campaign and that they should not campaign and accept interference in activity and should offer equal promotion chances to everyone.
Consultant of the Partnership for Development Center Alina Andronache said the way in which electoral rights of the disfavored citizens are respected in the electoral process will be supervised. It is about the students’ right to vote at the place of studies, the equal right to be chosen for women and men, for young people and persons with disabilities, for ethnic minorities, persons from the diaspora, etc.
Programs coordinator of Promo-LEX Association Nicolae Panfil reminded that the association he represents constituted an Observation Mission that will monitor the election campaign, the activities of election runners, financing of electoral activities, etc. “Within the Coalition, we will all take steps to assess the electoral process and have opinions about this at the end. We will see to what extent the principles of organizing the elections were respected and to what extent the elections were free, fair, democratic, transparent, etc.” stated Nicolae Panfil.
The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections is an entity formed of 35 NGOs. The member organizations invite other entities to join in.
