The organization and conduct of the parliamentary elections of February 24, 2019 will be monitored by national and international observers. Under the regulations concerning the status of observers and the procedure for accrediting these, national observers can be citizens of the Republic of Moldova, representatives of eligible public organizations of the Republic of Moldova or representatives of electoral contenders accredited by the electoral bodies in the conditions stipulated by the Election Code. International observers can be representatives of international organizations, foreign governments and foreign nongovernmental organizations as well as international electoral experts accredited by the Central Election Commission. At the request of electrical contenders, the district electoral council accredits by an observer for monitoring the elections at polling places. The trustworthy persons can also be accredited as observers.
The applications to accredit national observers are submitted to the Central Election Commission. The time limit for the submission of applications to accredit someone as an observer expires seven days before the election day. The international organizations, representatives of foreign governments and foreign nongovernmental organizations are invited to serve as foreign experts or observers by the Central Election Commission directly or through the agency of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, at the request of the Central Election Commission.
The observers can attend, without becoming involved, all the meetings of the electoral bodies, the control, sealing up and opening of ballot boxes, the vote count and tabulation, the operations related to voter rolls, ballots and voting certificates and compilation of reports on the totaling up of election results. The observers have access to electoral information, registers of voters and proceedings compiled by electoral bodies, can film, make video recordings and take pictures by notifying the electoral body, without endangering the secret and security of voting. The national observers can submit challenges over the identified irregularities.
The observers are obliged to be impartial when fulfilling their duties and must not express personal opinions or preferences for particular electoral contenders or participants in the referendum, or about problems that appear in the voting process and must fulfil their duties in a correct manner. They must not intervene in the voting process, in the procedures on the election day, vote count, etc. If the observers violate the electoral norms, the electoral body that accredited the observer can annul the accreditation by adopting a decision to this effect.
About 160 international observers and approximately 700 national observers have been accredited by January 22, 2019. Most of these represent the public association “Promo-LEX” and such international organizations as the Election Monitoring Organization of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Embassies of Latvia, Hungary and Italy and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. Applications to have observers registered can be filed during the period that ends seven days before the election day.
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The IPN division “Elections in plain words” is designed to explain notions, terms and practices related to the parliamentary elections based on the mixed electoral system and the consultative referendum that will take place on February 24, 2019.
