Coalition-2007 says runoff elections have generally met international criteria for free elections

The Civic Coalition for Free and Fair Elections “Coalition-2007” says the second round of local elections have, for the most part, met the international criteria for free elections, except the case in Corjova, and have been partly fair. This conclusion was articulated at a press conference, Info-Prim Neo reports. The observers of the League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADOM) signalled a number of irregularities, but they were not too large to destabilise the voting process. According to LADOM chairman Paul Strutzescu, the second round of local elections was much better than the June 3 polls, as the observers managed to prevent more irregularities. Among the irregularities noticed by the poll-watchers were: the presence of 2-4 persons in a booth, the handling of several ballot papers to a voter, instances of campaigning in the polling places etc. Besides, says Paul Strutzescu, the voters were deprived of the right to the secrecy of ballot because of the poor quality of the ballot papers, which made the “voted” stamp open to easy view. At the same time, the Coalition-2007 mentioned that in the second round there have been included in the supplementary voter rolls less persons than in the first round. For instance, on June 3, in the supplementary rolls in Orhei city there have been listed 14.6% of voters, while in round two – only 2.12%. Chisinau also saw a decrease in the number of voters included in the supplementary rolls – from over 1% to 0.81%. Referring to the conduct of mass media on election day and the days before that, the executive director of the Independent Press Association, Petru Macovei, stated that the period between round one and two was marked by numerous personal attacks and libellous articles against the candidate of the Liberal Party. Concurrently, the public TV station Moldova 1, the National Radio, Antena C radio and to a certain extent NIT channel favoured the communist candidate. On the very day of elections, says Macovei, the National Radio aired an interview with Prime Minister Vasile Tarlev, who enumerated “the great things” done in Chisinau and expressed his option for the candidate that would continue implementing the commenced projects. Petru Macovei added that the former state-owned press outlets “Moldova Suverana” and “Nezavisimaia Moldova” newspapers featured compromising and offending materials about Dorin Chirtoaca. Coalition 2007 is a voluntary union of non-governmental organisations, established with the goal to monitor the 2007 local elections and with the aim to undertake the following main actions: short and long term observation of the election campaign, monitoring of the electoral process media coverage, civic and electoral education for voters and electoral public servants.